Closing your old email account without losing anything

Close your old mailbox too early and you can easily lose emails, bills and sometimes even access to online accounts. With the right order, that won’t happen.

In short: First move and back up everything, then update your address everywhere, then wait a few weeks. Closing the account comes last.

Before you close it: check these five things

1. All emails have moved. Compare the number of emails per folder in your move report. Mailovo also lists which emails were skipped and why, for example because they were too large for the new mailbox.
2. You have a backup on your computer. Download the old mailbox as a file before it disappears. The mailbox backup gives you a ZIP file you can open with Thunderbird or Apple Mail.
3. Your address has been updated everywhere. Accounts you sign in to with the old address matter most. If you ever forget your password there, the reset link goes to the old address.
4. Contacts and calendar are saved. Many providers store your address book and appointments alongside your emails. Export them separately in the old provider’s settings, usually as a vCard file (contacts) and an iCal file (appointments).
5. Nothing important arrives at the old address any more. You will see this during forwarding.

How long should you wait?

As a rule of thumb: at least one to three months. Some emails only arrive once a year, such as annual energy bills, contribution statements or tax documents. If your old mailbox is free, there is nothing wrong with keeping it longer and checking it now and then.

Free mailbox: keep it or delete it?

Keeping a free mailbox costs nothing. Two things are worth knowing, though:

• Some providers switch off mailboxes that haven’t been used for a long time. If you keep it, sign in every few months.
• With some providers, a deleted address can be given to someone else later. That person would then receive emails still sent to you and could use “forgot password” to get into your old accounts. So only delete the address once it really isn’t used anywhere.

Cancelling a paid mailbox

Check your contract first: there is often a notice period until the end of the term. In Germany, if you signed up online, the provider has had to offer a clearly visible way to cancel online since July 2022, the so-called cancellation button. Keep the cancellation confirmation.

The order at a glance

1. Set up and secure the new mailbox (strong password, second factor)
2. Move all emails and check the report
3. Download a backup file, export contacts and calendar
4. Update your address everywhere, starting where you sign in with it
5. Let forwarding run for a few weeks
6. Change the old mailbox’s password
7. Close the old mailbox, or keep it on purpose

The whole switch from the start is covered in Switching email providers.