If you are thinking of changing your email and using a European one that is more privacy-focused, we tell you everything you need to know about it.
If you are thinking of changing your personal email for a European email service, we are going to help you through the process. The good news is that you have several alternatives available, many focused on privacy and not selling your data.
But there are several things you should keep in mind, and we are going to go over them with you in this article. The aim is that if you are thinking of making the change, you know in advance everything you have to do, so you don’t forget anything.
What does changing your email provider mean?
If you have decided to change your email provider, you should first know that this means you will have to create a new email address on another website. In other words, if you want to change Gmail for another service, the address you have will be that of the other service.
As we will explain a little later, this is going to present some challenges. Your address will be new, so you will have to try to prioritize the use of this one over the old one. If you are going to change, it is advisable that you do not try to do it from one day to the next, you will need a transition time to
What to look for in the alternatives
If you are going to take the trouble to change Gmail or Outlook for another email provider, the ideal is to do so for a better service. This is not difficult in terms of privacy, as most European services try to stand out and position themselves by respecting your data and not selling it to third parties.
In addition to this, you can make sure that the email has good encryption to protect the content of what you write or receive. If it has two-step verification for logging in, even better. Obviously it is important that it has a POP or IMAP system so that you can add it to email client programs and not necessarily have to use their specific apps or websites.
You can also make sure that they don’t insert advertising, or even additional services such as migration assistants or the possibility of creating secondary addresses to register with them wherever you want and not expose the main one. You can also see if it has a calendar service, notes, address book and similar add-ons.
Although it is not vital, another important thing you might want to look out for is that the service allows you to choose the name you want to use for your email address. There are also some where you can choose the domain. For example, the German service Posteo not only allows you to register as nombre@posteo.com, but you can also choose from other endings such as posteo.es, .net, .ie and several others.
Your privacy has a price
One of the first things you will realize is that when you look for a service that really respects your privacy, this service usually comes at a price. There are options like Posteo or Mailbox that don’t ask for much, just 1 euro a month in exchange for taking better care of your privacy and keeping the service running.
Keep in mind the old saying that when an online service is free, it’s because you’re paying with your data. This is usually true, and when the service doesn’t include ads or any system for paying by selling user data, then it tends to be paid. What you can do is simply look for one that isn’t too expensive, and always try to make sure they offer
There are some things you won’t be able to get rid of
Unfortunately, even if the email service you decide to use respects your privacy, you will not be able to completely get rid of spam. There may be cookies on some of the pages you visit, or even on a website where you use your new email, the data may be sold to advertising companies and you may start to receive this type of content as well.
Here, the amount of spam you receive will be better, but surely some will slip through. In any case, it depends on the filters applied by the service you have chosen to create your account, so in many cases it can be almost non-existent.
Set up your email on your mobile or computer
Once you have your new email account, you’re going to have work to do. The first step is to download the app you need to access it, or add your account to the email application you’re already using. If you were using Gmail or Outlook as an app, you’re going to need to download another one where you can add third-party accounts.
Adding your address to an email client is usually a simple matter. When you register, in whichever service you have done it, you will have to look for the IMAP or POP3 information to add it to the client you use. It is best to use IMAP, as it works for multiple devices and offers real-time synchronization, and if you delete an email it will also be deleted from the server and all devices.
Set up your email in your online accounts
This is the most tedious part of the whole process that you are going to need. If you create a new email address, you may want to set up your online accounts to use the new address instead of the one you originally signed up with.
I’m afraid this process has to be manual. You will have to go account by account and service by service, editing your user profiles to enter the new address. If you have a password manager, search for the address you want to stop using in it, and you will know how many services you have to change it in. By the way, remember to edit the changes in the manager and that it is a good time to also change the password you were using.
Import the address book
If the email you want to stop using has an address book with the accounts you want to write to, you will have to remember to migrate them to the new email. That way you won’t lose these contacts, and you’ll be able to write to them again easily.
In some cases you will be able to download the details of these addresses in a format that you can then upload to the new platform, and in other cases you will have to do it manually. Maybe you have your address book in a contacts application on your mobile phone, this is the best case because it won’t depend on the email service you use, and you won’t have to touch anything.
Notify your new address
If there are people who tend to write to you at the email address you want to abandon, it is usually a good idea to write to them from the old one to inform them of the new address. Don’t do it the other way around or they will think you are some kind of cybercriminal with an account they don’t know about trying to trick them.
Also remember to unsubscribe or change the address on newsletters or automated emails that you usually receive at the account you want to stop using. At least those that you consider important and useful.
Forwarding from the old email to the new one
Another interesting option is to configure the email that you want to abandon to forward emails to the new address. The negative part is that spam may be included, but the positive part is that if you do this for a couple of months you will be able to detect emails that you don’t want to lose and make changes so that they go to the new address.
If you have important emails archived in the old account you have been using until now, it is also important that you remember to forward them to the new one so as not to lose them and to keep track of them.
Calendar and other add-ons
If you usually use the Gmail or Outlook calendar, or the one from the email account you want to abandon, you should also consider migrating this data to the new address you want to start using.
Depending on the service, it is possible that this migration can be done automatically, although it is quite possible that you will have to do it manually. It may also be a good time to look at other European alternatives to calendar services that are independent of email and give you more options.
Keep your old address for a few months
Once you have made all the changes and migrations you think are necessary, you should know that it is not advisable to immediately close your old email account. You may not even want to close it completely.
If you do want to close it, keep it for a few months to detect emails that are still automatically sent to you and are worth keeping. It can also help you locate contacts that you may have forgotten to inform of the change, or services where you have not yet changed the address.
But another option is to keep the old email and use it as a junk address to register with unimportant sites, while you can use the new service account as a personal account for the important stuff.
