Need help desperately!

[christiana]

I recently moved and now am unable to access my email. I called Comcast and they had no record of me, even though I have phone, TV and highspeed internet service with them. They had to re-enter me into the system. To me this is a great loss of email and address book accumulated over much time. They gave me a new email address which is no consolation for the great loss of all prior contacts! Is there no way to retrieve my old email and to access my previous address book? Hoping for help and advice from PB posters.

 

[ReformedWretch]

If you try and log on to Comcast e-mail is there not something to click on that says "forgot name and password"?

 

[christiana]

I received help from a Comcast live chat person! Thanks!!

 

[BobVigneault]

Good to hear. Did they recover your email?

 

[Hippo]

I think that it is a really bad idea in all sorts of ways to be tied to an e-mail address of your service provider. It is much better just to have your own.

 

[christiana]

How does one do that? Please explain how to 'have your own'.

Yes, Bob, they did recover my email and I printed off the address book immediately and then had difficulty again after that. The techs were very helpful and patient. I'm not very adept at navigating these machines!

 

[Hippo]

How does one do that? Please explain how to 'have your own'.

Yes, Bob, they did recover my email and I printed off the address book immediately and then had difficulty again after that. The techs were very helpful and patient. I'm not very adept at navigating these machines!

Buy a domain name i.e. Christiana.com (of course most of the obvious ones have gone but you can always work out some combination of names that are free) and buy an e-mail hosting package that will allow you to set up your own e-mail addreses at that domain i.e. [email protected].

You then log onto that address lkike any other. It costs a few dollars for the domain name each year and the e-mail service would be about $25 per year but for that you can have multiple addresses at that domain and when you change service provider you just keep your own e-mail address.

For instance I have the domain pettit.org.uk and at that address have e-mail accounts using both my and my wifes first name.

 

[Jimmy the Greek]

How does one do that? Please explain how to 'have your own'. . .

One way is a free gmail address through Google. Thus it never changes and is not tied to your ISP. You can set it up to forward to your ISP email if you desire.

 

[jwithnell]

... same with Hotmail and gmail. We've had the same email accounts since we had dial-up service and so many of the different high speed connections that I can't even tell you what we have now. (My husband is a very lovable geek. I figure collecting internet connections is cheaper than sports cars or women.)

BTW, one "advantage" of changing email accounts is that it can keep you one step ahead of the spammers. I replicate this by keeping my primary account private and use a second account for when a website requires and email.

 

[Casey]

You do not have to buy a domain to be able to keep your e-mail.

My recommendation to prevent this from happening in the future is to never use the e-mail service provided by your ISP. In general, your ISP does not care about your information -- and they will say it is your responsibility to save what you want to keep. They store all that information on their servers, and if it gets lost, it's gone.

What you need is two things: (1) an extra layer and (2) a form of backup.

What I'm calling an extra layer is meant to free you from the confines of your present ISP (there's a word for this, I want to say "transparency," maybe that's it, but I can't remember!). If you move, you will probably need a new ISP. If your current ISP goes out of business, you'll need a new one. If your want to change for better prices, again, you'll be changing ISPs. In any of these situations you may potentially lose all your e-mail. Instead, get a free online web-based e-mail service (I recommend Gmail, see below). Not only can you check your mail from anywhere in the world, but if you change ISPs (or don't even have one) you will not lose your e-mail.

Next, you need a way to back it up. This is so that if the web-based service has trouble with their servers and lose the data, or if they go out of business (not likely, but possible), or stop offering the service free, then you can still get to your e-mail. Again, this can be free. All you need is something like Thunderbird (a free e-mail client, of which there are many) or you could use Outlook. I got a free copy of Entourage (Outlook for Mac, as much as I can't stand Microsoft) and this is what I use.

After you get both of these, you can hook them together (I highly recommend Gmail for this, they provide the technical options to make this possible: POP3 or IMAP; the two technologies are different with different benefits, but it would be hard to explain here). Your e-mail client can be linked to your web-based e-mail. If you do this, all your e-mail will be kept in two places: (1) on the servers of those running your free e-mail service and (2) on your own computer. You will be able to read your e-mail from your own computer and also from the web. You will also be able to send e-mail from both places.

Linking them together is not difficult, but I cannot put instructions here because they would have to be tailored depending on which web-based e-mail service you use and which e-mail client you have on your computer.

If you do this, then if you change ISPs you'll still have your e-mail (on your own computer). If your computer dies, you'll still have your e-mail (on someone else's computer). This is much safer than using your ISP's e-mail service and can be done for free.

I know this can't help you get your e-mail back this time, but I hope this helps you in the future.

 

[Skyler]

I would highly recommend using Gmail. As it's provided by Google, it's probably as safe or safer than backing it up yourself. In addition, you get 7 GB and counting of storage space for your email(7GB is a LOT of emails!), and a bunch of other cool features. You can also download your mail to your computer in Outlook, Thunderbird or any other email program.

Signup is also easy, just go to gmail.com and register for a new account(if you don't already have a Google account).

 

[fredtgreco]

Casey's advice is dead on. The best way to make sure you keep your emails is to backup and layer. I have all my emails from the late 90s. Being a lawyer, I had to save emails related to clients, and it is a help even today to do a search and find an email on a church or theological subject from years ago.

The most thorough method I have found is:

1. Get a "free" email account. The most flexible is GMail, since it works best with mail clients (better with Outlook than Hotmail!). Yahoo also works, but I think you must pay for POP3 (download to your PC) access.
2. Have the free email work through your email client (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) That will get copies of all your email on your machine.
3. Have GMail (etc.) "keep a copy on the server." This ensures you have at least two copies of all email - one on your PC (through the email program) and one on the web server.
4. Occasionally (maybe once a month or two) backup your email file (in Outlook this is a .pst file) to an external drive, CD, etc.

This way, even if you have catastrophic failure in one area, you will never lose everything.