Here are a few ways you can update your email address and stay connected

We’ve all had a situation where we have had an email address for so long, that there seems to be nothing coming into the the address but spam. We don’t know how we got on so many spam listings but when we see that we have 20 new emails, it isn’t because we’re popular. 

From time to time, it makes sense to change the email address we use, simply so that we can get a clean start. The problem then arises that we want to make sure that all our friends and family know our new email address. That can be a problem if you are actually popular at all, or you’re just not sure that you peeps are going to actually write down or record your new email address. 

Pretty soon, you run into a situation where you aren’t getting emails from someone because they are still sending messages to an address that is dedicated to spam. There is a way to set it so that your old email address will automatically send certain messages to your new one. Knowing how to update your email address so that you’ll get messages forwarded from your old address to your new address depends on the email service you are using.

For the purpose of this article, we took a look at how you can update your email address using the big three free email providers. Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo are some of the most used email providers in the country.

Outlook

Outlook, formally known as Hotmail, is the free email provider that is owned by Microsoft. It seems that the name change also came with a much easier way to update your email address and get emails easily forwarded to another inbox.

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What once used to be detailed step-by-step process that had you verifying numerous address and even using CAPTCHA has basically turned into something that doesn’t take more than a few seconds.

Simply click on the “options” widget and then select “more mail settings.” Once inside there, a link labeled “email forwarding” will be on the left hand side of the screen. Once you have clicked here, you will see options that say “don’t forward” and “forward to other email account.” Don’t forward is obviously automatically selected but you can change it quickly and then enter the email address you want in the box below. Then click save.

Gmail

Updating and forwarding your Gmail address is almost as easy and actually gives you a little more control. The first step is to click the gear (settings) widget and then go to to the menu titled “forwarding and POP/IMAP.” At the top of this menu is a “add a forwarding email” box. Simply click that and enter the new email address. 

Gmail will then send a verification email to that address. Google has also put a function in place that will actually allow you to set a filter, so that only certain emails will be forwarded. You can set it so that emails from certain people are always forwarded, as well as those containing certain topics, or that have attachments. This makes it that much easier to get away from Spam.

Yahoo

Of the three email providers, Yahoo makes forwarding the most difficult simply because they actually charge for that particular service. You will need to have a Yahoo Plus account, which costs $20 a year.

If you already have Yahoo Plus, or you think the cost is worth the service, forwarding then becomes as simple as the other addresses. Simply click the gear (options) table and go to the table on the left hand side labeled “POP&Forwarding.”

After that you simply enter the email address in which you want forwarding to work with. Keep in mind that you need to be paying for Yahoo Plus for as long as you want email addresses forwarded, so this becomes a situation where you are paying $20 a year for an email address you no longer use.