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BT, Sky, Plusnet and TalkTalk are all offenders of terrible ISP Email accounts; they are slow, basic and offer limited functionality. In this guide, we will help you make the move away from these email accounts onto an independent Email provider like Outlook (Hotmail) or Gmail (GoogleMail).

Why should I move?

Google, Yahoo & Outlook (Hotmail) are good email providers because they are independent from your internet providers.  If for example in the future you want to move from sky broadband, you will find that you will eventually lose access to your sky email account, losing all your existing emails and contacts; the same applies to BT, Plusnet and TalkTalk.

Create a independent account

1.1 Go to live.com in a web browser.

1.2 Click ‘Get a new email address’.

1.3 You can then create an email address of your choice ending in @outlook.com. if it already exists, you cannot use it and you will see it does not allow you to proceed.

1.4 Create a unique password then memorise and store a note of it securely.

1.5 You will then be prompted for your First and last name, which you can enter accordingly.

1.6 You will then be asked for your date of birth and country, which you can enter accordingly. These details are used for account recovery so ensure you have them memorised and not noted with your password.

1.7 You will now have created your Microsoft account and will be presented with your Microsoft account page.

Account set up

2.1 Visit outlook.live.com and use the login credentials for the email account you created earlier.

2.2 Ensure that you select the correct time zone in the drop down provided.

2.3 follow the steps by clicking the arrows.

2.4 Finally you can add a signature that will appear at the end of your emails.

2.5 After this step you will be presented with your new email inbox.

Connect accounts

3.1 When logged into your Microsoft account click on the settings cog in the top right corner (Pictured No. 1).  Then click the ‘Connected accounts’ text.

3.2 Click ‘Other email accounts’

3.3 You will then be prompted for your previous email accounts username and password which you should enter accordingly.  Microsoft will try to fetch email server settings for you with the information that you have provided.

3.4 You will also see an option between ‘Create a new folder for imported mail…’ and import into existing folders…’. If you wish to have your old emails stored in a folder on your new inbox then choose the ‘Create a new folder for imported mail…’ option. If you wish to have your emails how you had them before in the same folder structure then use the ‘Import into existing folders…’ option.

3.5 When prompted you should choose the below option as it will ensure your emails are being sent under your new email address.

3.6 All being well you will see a message saying that your account is now connected and that importing emails has begun.  It may take some time for the emails to appear in the account, you do not need your computer on for this process to work.

3.7 Following steps in 3.1 you will see this on the page after. You will be able to see the status of the connected email.

3.8 To do the same for more accounts you can repeat steps 3.2 to 3.7 with additional accounts details.

3.9 You can now return to your Inbox and see your old emails will have transferred and any new ones will appear after they reach the inbox.  Depending on your preference in step 3.4 you may see these emails stored differently.

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