I have a gmail account but don't use it and no one has the address. I go in every once in a while just to check and clear stuff out of the junk folder. Haven't been in before Christmas and I have an email from google showing me people on google I may know and I do know them but like you use another address for all these people. Also I have a ton of newsletters from a crochet site that I just realized I was not getting in my main address on aol anymore and all of a sudden I see all the news letters I have been missing showing up at the gmail address and I never once changed that I wanted the news letters to go to gmail so something must be going on with gmail because I don't give that address out so how this news letter suddenly changed over I have no clue. They started coming into gmail beginning of January. Mary

You can "export" your email addresses to a USB drive and "import" them on your new computer File->Export->Address Book->Text File-> using "Browse" find the location of your USB drive. Name your file and follow the steps in the wizard to finish. On your new computer go to File->Import and follow the steps to import the data from your USB drive You can do the same for exporting/importing your Internet Favorites. It is located under File->Export. Just follow the wizard. I have never had any luck moving the actual email files. I am sure there is a way - but every attempt I have made has failed. I know there was a software you could purchase to "back up" OE, and then restore it on a new machine. I didn't want to buy anything though. You could try forwarding the emails (from your old machine) that you want to keep to yourself - then retrieving them on the new machine.

I think he's talking about email from agnostic sources - Yahoo mail, Gmail, etc., You can change your ISP as frequently as you like and still have the same address to use. Which brings up a thought to share - sometimes you can save money on your internet connection by changing your supplier periodically. Most offer cut rates for new customers. Switch to take advantage of that, and then when the reduced price period ends, switch to another provider (maybe the one you left originally) who likely also offers a deal for new customers. Many mail services - like Gmail - can be set up to collect email messages from multiple accounts and concentrate everything in one central place. It helps you avoid the annoyance of multiple logins, but if you do that with non-work related email accounts, it does bring into question why you need more than one account in the first place. Oh, and for the OP, really there's no advantage or disadvantage to using a mail program. Maybe you prefer the user interface, but there's likely little difference between any one and the web experience using a browser

I don't know anyone who supplies there real info to web based email accounts. Why would anyone do that?? What ever info you enter should be written down and saved somewhere though. If you should ever forget your password or your account gets hijacked they will ask you for you "information". After all they can't just send out passwords for accounts to just anybody who asks for it claiming to be the owner of said account. I learned this the hard way with my Yahoo account. They needed to know my birthday in order to retrieve my password for me and how the heck would I remember what I had put down when I signed up? Good-bye Yahoo email account. Some email services ask for your referrer email account too so take note of that also.