What would happen if your email provider closed overnight?

[Rytron]

Hi.

I'm curious as to what would happen if your email provider closed overnight. If you were given notice that it was closing in a few weeks or months you could edit your online account associated with that email address but if it suddenly went - there'd be chaos. To change passwords (as is recommended be done fairly frequently) - usually they send an email to you - also needed if you forgot your password - you see the problem straight away.

I know this scenario is extremely unlikely but maybe not impossible - especially if you used a lesser known email provider.

Any thoughts from you guys on this?

Thanks.

[buzzingrobot]

Well... some people would be really annoyed. ;)

Don't know how many of my online accounts might be affected. I doubt there's much verification of an address after registration.

Mail providers do go out of business, just like any other business. Gmail's there, for example, because Google makes money using it for ads. We have no guarantee that Gmail will be there forever.

Just shows that it's smart to keep local copies of your own mail, at least the stuff whose loss you can't risk. I'll admit I don't do that. (And I once accidentally zapped a Gmail account and 40,000 messages.) But, I do use two mail providers, and a copy of all mail to the account I rely on is forwarded to the the other account, where it sits on their servers, just in case.

[SeijiSensei]

Nothing. I maintain my own mail servers.

[QIII]

I think the OP was asking about normal ​people, SeijiSensei. ;)

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

you know you have too much time on your hands when you run your own mail server

[SeijiSensei]

I think the OP was asking about normal ​people, SeijiSensei. ;)


you know you have too much time on your hands when you run your own mail server

:D

I've run mail servers for twenty years now. Most of that time was sunk in the past more or less except for fighting spam. The new batch that has appeared over the past year is carefully designed not to trip any of SpamAssassin's rules and has been especially difficult to trap.

[sandyd]

not a ubuntu support request - moved to the cafe

[PaulW2U]

If you were given notice that it was closing in a few weeks or months you could edit your online account associated with that email address but if it suddenly went - there'd be chaos.

I have a number of domains that I use for e-mail and all could be reconfigured to point to a new provider quite quickly. All of my mail is also forwarded to Gmail as a backup and I have several local backups of various IMAP providers I have used over the years.

The best backup is, where appropriate, to extract important information and store elsewhere and in another format. I've lost a lot of mail over the years but it has never caused me a problem but YMMV as they say. ;)


you know you have too much time on your hands when you run your own mail server

I wish I had the expertise and confidence to actually run my own mail server. :p

[s.fox]

To get it back fully on topic...

I do agree it'd be chaos, but I also wonder if the provider would be legally bound to give some sort of duty of care. On the other hand laws are different in every country.

[Rytron]

not a ubuntu support request - moved to the cafe

Sorry Sandy. I was unsure of the correct place to post the thread. Thanks for remedying this.

[Rytron]

I think the OP was asking about normal ​people, SeijiSensei. ;)

Yes, I should have stated in the original post that I meant only 3rd party email services.

[J_Me]

This happened to me years ago. They gave a fair amount of warning I think it was about month, as an apology they sent me a remote controlled toy car in the post tbh I didn't use that email for anything anyway.
Fun car tho

[Rytron]

This happened to me years ago. They gave a fair amount of warning I think it was about month, as an apology they sent me a remote controlled toy car in the post tbh I didn't use that email for anything anyway.
Fun car tho

A month seems fine. Out of curiosity - what email provider was it?

[kurt18947]

Hi.

I'm curious as to what would happen if your email provider closed overnight. If you were given notice that it was closing in a few weeks or months you could edit your online account associated with that email address but if it suddenly went - there'd be chaos. To change passwords (as is recommended be done fairly frequently) - usually they send an email to you - also needed if you forgot your password - you see the problem straight away.

I know this scenario is extremely unlikely but maybe not impossible - especially if you used a lesser known email provider.

Any thoughts from you guys on this?

Thanks.

Not impossible at all -- Lavabit did exactly this, closed overnight with no warning. I use Thunderbird so had a local copy of all Lavabit messages and knew which email addresses I had to change. If I hadn't had those local copies, I'd have been slightly screwed.

[Rytron]

Not impossible at all -- Lavabit did exactly this, closed overnight with no warning. I use Thunderbird so had a local copy of all Lavabit messages and knew which email addresses I had to change. If I hadn't had those local copies, I'd have been slightly screwed.

Ah yes, I forgot about Lavabit. But if you wanted to change your email address on your online account - they usually send you a confirmation email to your current email address (now closed in this scenario) in case someone else was trying to change details of online account. How did you get around this?

[J_Me]

A month seems fine. Out of curiosity - what email provider was it?I think the company was called excite-dot-something not sure tho, it was one of those free pop3 email accounts.

[Mike_Walsh]

Not impossible at all -- Lavabit did exactly this, closed overnight with no warning. I use Thunderbird so had a local copy of all Lavabit messages and knew which email addresses I had to change. If I hadn't had those local copies, I'd have been slightly screwed.

Have to agree with this. Using Thunderbird myself, it does at least give you a local copy of mail up to the current point in time.....even with IMAP. I started off using POP3, but of course, you get a huge build-up of stuff in the Thunderbird directory after any length of time.

It helps running more than one account, anyway. Gives you more options.


Regards,

Mike. :)

[PJs Ronin]

... I'm curious as to what would happen if your email provider closed overnight...

let's see. I'd no longer get emails about my manhood (or someone else's manhood), or get rich schemes, or the Nigerian tax office request to do something or other, or videos about cats (hmmm, that might be bad) or emails that try and make my priorities align with those of someone too lazy to actually do any work. If my email shut down I would happily retreat to my troglodyte abode and perhaps visit someone, in person... face to face like.

Would I miss emails? Not on your nellie.

[sffvba[e0rt]

A lot of difficulty if I ever have to reset any passwords >.<

[buzzingrobot]

Have to agree with this. Using Thunderbird myself, it does at least give you a local copy of mail up to the current point in time.....even with IMAP. I started off using POP3, but of course, you get a huge build-up of stuff in the Thunderbird directory after any length of time.



The IMAP protocol keeps mail on the server but allows it to be synchronized -- copied and retained locally -- as the user wants. Thunderbird enables synchronization of all mail by default, Evolution does not default to it. Users can also select which folders to synch.

POP. of course, simply downloads mail and deletes it from the server. That's why IMAP, not POP. is popular today when so many people access mail from different devices. Some providers, though, bend the protocol a bit an allow POP mail to stay on the server for a period of time before it's deleted.

[nargaroth_reg]

I don't have any accounts so important I couldn't just make a new one and over time I've ended up using addresses from a few different providers so if one of them closed down at least I wouldn't lose all of them (if it was also the case that I had forgotten its password :P).

[sammiev]

I have a few accounts with different providers so I'm safe in that respect for addresses.

[kurt18947]

Ah yes, I forgot about Lavabit. But if you wanted to change your email address on your online account - they usually send you a confirmation email to your current email address (now closed in this scenario) in case someone else was trying to change details of online account. How did you get around this?

I only had a problem with one provider, a prepaid phone company. I had to call to make that change. The others were inconsequential and I just created a new account.

[kurt18947]

The IMAP protocol keeps mail on the server but allows it to be synchronized -- copied and retained locally -- as the user wants. Thunderbird enables synchronization of all mail by default, Evolution does not default to it. Users can also select which folders to synch.

POP. of course, simply downloads mail and deletes it from the server. That's why IMAP, not POP. is popular today when so many people access mail from different devices. Some providers, though, bend the protocol a bit an allow POP mail to stay on the server for a period of time before it's deleted.

Thunderbird has options with POP accounts to delete from the server immediately, leave on the server for at most x number of days or leave until I delete them. I don't know if all POP providers support all options.

[john387]

If you use a reputable provider (www.1and1.co.uk/email-address) it should never happen! I feel pretty secure with my 1&1 business email address and I have full access to the data. Can't see this company going anywhere soon so I'm sure I won't be suffering any data/email losses. I've been very happy with the support they provide also.

[residualbit]

I was using lavabit as my email provider during the shutdown. I respect their decision and think they made the right one, but it was a PITA nonetheless. There are still a few misc. accounts here and there that I just had to either recreate, or gave up on because any change verification emails were still going to the lavabit.

Thunderbird, or any other client that lets you store your email locally is a good safety net, as others have mentioned, but that doesn't address the situation of changing your email address in all of the places it is registered.

My way around that, moving forward, is that I bought a domain, and pay for my own email hosting. Worst case scenario, if the email hosting provider shuts down, I take my domain elsewhere.

[leclerc65]

Ah yes, I forgot about Lavabit. But if you wanted to change your email address on your online account - they usually send you a confirmation email to your current email address (now closed in this scenario) in case someone else was trying to change details of online account. How did you get around this?

I have them send me a text on my cell number.

[HermanAB]

Nothing will happen.

Email is a renewable resource, the gift that keeps on giving.

The problem is always how to get less email, not more...

[Rytron]

I have them send me a text on my cell number.

Thanks for the info.

[SeijiSensei]

Thunderbird has options with POP accounts to delete from the server immediately, leave on the server for at most x number of days or leave until I delete them. I don't know if all POP providers support all options.
Most POP3 server software provide the option for the server administrator to disable the "leave on server" command. When I had some people with POP3 accounts I routinely disabled this option to prevent them from building up huge backlogs of mail on the server. One of the common problems with the "leave on server" option is that some mail clients (like the now uncommon Eudora) would only show new messages. Thus the user was not aware of the backlog that existed on the server.