This is going to be a very stupid question but I am VERY computer illiterate.?

Question

I am wanting to change internet providers. What do I need to do to make sure I don't lose addresses, messages, etc. that I have saved? Too embarrased to ask anyone I know.....

Answer 1

Changing internet providers will in no way harm the messages in your inbox.

Answer 2

Once you have an email acct. it is yours.Your isp, internet service provider, simply provides access to the internet i.e. your phone company, cable, etc... Your email address is provided by a domain such as yahoo, AOL, etc.. You do not have to own a computer or have internet service of your own to have an email acct. This way if you ever are not near your computer you may check your email from any computer! Your service provider will not effect your current email, just give you a second one if you choose to use it. For instance, i am ,[e-mail]. Which I set up months before i had my own computer .My service is through my phone line. Therefore they provide me with a completely seperate email, [e-mail]. I choose to only use my yahoo acct. This way it does not matter what provider i use. I hope this makes sense. We all start off as computer illiterate. You will be suprised at how easily you pick it up. Just keep asking questions. There are no stupid questions...good luck and have fun!

Answer 3

You shouldn't lose your email addresses, etc. These are in Outlook (or similar program). When you change Internet Service Providers or ISP's, the changes are made in "Network Neighborhood" for high-spedd ADSL type connections. For modem connections, look in the Control Panel.

However, if you are >>REALLY PARANOID<< I'd suggest you set up an independent email, like the service offered by Yahoo.

Once set up, simply forward any Important Emails to your Yahoo account. When you are confident that all is well with your new ISP, you can delete the mail from Yahoo.

Answer 4

easiest method as to not lose any important email would be to make a hard copy of your emails.
a hard copy is a printed copy using your computers printer and printing to paper of your choice.
you can make a folder on your computer and normally you can drag and drop email messages to that folder. then to open them againyou would select your prefered email client, outlook, outlook express or any of the hundreds of readers/ clients on the market today.
however if you are simpluy changing providers you should not need to worry about losing emails as your account will still remain open on their servers for a few weeks to months afgter you transfer. so you would just log in as you did before the change with the same user ID and password.

however this does depend on your ISPs. so backing up your important emails from the server to your local computer is recomended.

if you use an email client and have several email addresses rather than backing up you could simply forward all the emails from the ISP you are closing to an account that will not change.
there are lots of ways as you can see. it just needs a little imagination from you to decide which method is best for you.

good luck

Answer 5

some ips's offer a way to transfer email addresses. worse case would be to copy (electronically or handwritten) them all down and put them in when you get your new service. messages are a different story. outlook or outlook express offers a way to back messages up but if you dont have outlook you would have to download all of them to the program first.

since you did not say what kind of mail ur using right now it's hard to give you an exact way. if youre using yahoo mail then it's all online and changing isps wont effect anything. if you not using on online mail client then you might have to do the transfer

Answer 6

You shouldn't lose anything as long as you have it stored in something else, such as your email account (as long as that isn't from your current service provider) or a program such as Outlook.

Answer 7

changing providers doesn't effect things that are save on your computer