I've been on AOL for many years. Time to switch to another dial-up vendor. How to save all archive data?

Question

I have lots of old emails send & receive and address books. Years of them. Can anyone help with a method I can download all without doing each individually? I'll save everything on my yahoo account. Thanks much.

Answer 1

According to the News many users are leaving AOL. Yesterday it was announced that AOL is laying off about 5,000 workers, so it seems many people are in your situation.

I’ve been an AOL user in the past and for many years. In fact, I was using AOL back when I was on an Apple ][ computer. I have used up to version 6, but only for a short period. The problem with AOL is that everything is proprietary and their data can’t be ported outside of AOL. AOL software is a world all its own and that is why I moved away from it. As an IT professional there have been many severe headaches for my department with users installing AOL on work computers. To me AOL is no better than a computer virus. So, even though I’ve not been an AOL subscriber for years I still have the unpleasant task of having to deal with it from time to time.

Of course, you should still be able to access your AOL mail free when you switch to a different ISP, but anything else AOL is AOL exclusively…unfortunately.

Answer 2

I know that there is a way to download addresses and stuff onto yahoo using Microsoft Excel or Office. I did it when I switched email addresses in yahoo. I just can't remember exactly how it's done. If you look around in the address section of yahoo, I think it tells you how to upload it. If you can't save your addresses from AOL to it, typing it into there and downloading one big file is still easier than entering each one individually. I hope this helps.

Oh and btw, when you call AOL to cancel, be sure to get the name of the person you speak to and write down the date and time you spoke to them and note the day they said they are cutting it off. Both me and my brother and a few other people I know had called to cancel our AOL service and after fighting with them for about 20 minutes to get them to turn it off they said they would on a certain date and a month later we were charged for another month of service, they never turned it off. When we asked for a refund they refused since they said they had no "record" of us actually calling to shut it off. So please, for your sake, take REALLY good notes when you talk to them. Email them if you have to, just make sure you can fight when they inevitably pull the same trick on you.

Good luck, I hope this helps you in any way.

Answer 3

You should be able to keep your email account. AOL recently opened up their mail servers to the public and not just members.

http://mail.aol.com/

If you still want to switch your email, you should take advantage of still being a member and contact support and ask them, they'll probably be able to provide you with the best method for this.

Answer 4

I don't know, But you better be real careful when you close your account with those theives. AOL will to continue to charge you unless you get a confirmation number that you canceled, record everything who you talk to, the date, and time. They got me for 7 months after I canceled, they were forcing payments on to a canceled credit card.