Will you lose your broadband email address if you switch?
Not automatically, but every provider treats it differently, and a few will delete it fast if you don’t ask first. Your broadband email address is tied to the account it was created under, so leaving that account without a plan is how people end up locked out of years of messages.
This one worry keeps more people on a bad deal than almost anything else we hear about. Nobody wants to explain to their bank, their dentist and their old school friends that their email has vanished. The good news is that with ten minutes of prep, it doesn’t have to.
What happens to your broadband email address with each provider?
Policies vary more than you’d expect from providers selling almost identical broadband. Here’s where the big five stand, checked September 2026.
| Provider | What happens after you leave |
|---|---|
| Sky | Keeps your email address free, indefinitely, as long as you log in occasionally |
| Plusnet | Keeps it free with no time limit, but you must request the downgrade before your account closes |
| TalkTalk | Free access for around two years, then deleted. A paid Mail Plus option runs £5 a month or £50 a year. Accounts unused for six months are deleted |
| BT | Free BT Basic email, web browser access only, if you ask when you cancel. Full features cost £7.50 a month on BT Premium Mail |
| Virgin Media | Deleted, contacts and all, around 90 days after your contract ends, with no paid option to keep it |
A word on timing: these windows start from the day your service actually stops, not the day you sign up elsewhere. If your new broadband takes two weeks to install, the clock on your old broadband email address may already be running before you’ve sent a single email from the new address.
Note the pattern in that table: Sky, Plusnet and BT all require you to ask before the account closes. Leave it until after and the option often disappears, whatever the published policy says.
Ask us which one is easiest to keep and it’s Sky, hands down. Ask which one catches people out, and it’s Virgin Media’s 90 day cliff edge, since there’s no premium tier to buy your way out of it.
Key takeaways
- Sky lets you keep a broadband email address for free, indefinitely, with light use.
- Virgin Media deletes emails and contacts around 90 days after you leave, no paid extension available.
- BT offers a free web-only Basic account, or full features on Premium Mail at £7.50 a month.
- TalkTalk keeps access free for about two years, with a £5 a month paid option after that.
- With Sky, Plusnet and BT you generally have to request this before the account closes, so ask while you still can.
- Whatever you use, forward your last month of important emails to a personal account before you switch.
How do you keep a broadband email address safely before you switch?
Start by setting up a free personal email address with a provider that isn’t tied to your broadband, like a webmail account you control forever. Then update the handful of places that actually matter: your bank, your GP surgery, your pension provider, and anywhere you’d genuinely notice a missed message.
Set up automatic forwarding from your old broadband email address to the new one while both are active. Most providers let you do this from the account settings before you cancel, and it buys you weeks of overlap instead of a hard cutoff.
Download a copy of anything you’d hate to lose while you still can. A simple export of your inbox, or even just saving attachments and old order confirmations to a folder on your computer, takes minutes and closes off the worst case scenario entirely.
Finally, tell the people who actually email you. A short message to close family, your accountant, or a landlord saying “I’m switching my email to [new address] from [date]” does more to prevent a missed bill than any amount of forwarding rules ever will.
What if you’ve already lost access to your old broadband email address?
First, check whether the deletion window has actually passed. Providers publish these dates, and a quick call to their support line will confirm whether your account is dormant or genuinely gone. Dormant accounts can often be reactivated within a grace period.
If it’s truly deleted, work backwards from what you can control. Update your bank, your GP, your energy and broadband accounts, and any subscription that uses that address, starting with anything tied to money or your health. It’s tedious, but it’s a one-off job, not a recurring cost.
Is it worth staying with a provider just to keep your email?
Rarely, once you’ve done the sum. A house move or a mediocre deal can cost £100 or more a year over a better offer, and forwarding a broadband email address takes an afternoon, not months. Staying put purely to dodge an email migration is exactly the kind of quiet cost the Do-Nothing Default relies on.
The exception is a business relying on that address for client contact, where the switch needs proper planning rather than a quick forward. In that case, budget a few weeks of running both addresses in parallel before you close the old one for good.
Frequently asked questions about your broadband email address
- Can I keep my email address forever after switching broadband?
- Sky and Plusnet both allow it indefinitely, though Plusnet requires you to request the downgrade before your account closes. Everyone else attaches a time limit, a monthly fee, or both, so treat any broadband email address as temporary and have a personal backup ready.
- What happens to old emails if my account gets deleted?
- They’re gone. Providers don’t keep a recoverable backup once the deletion window passes, which is why forwarding important messages before you leave matters more than the exact date they’ll pull the plug.
- Does my email address change if I move to a different package with the same provider?
- Usually not. Staying with the same provider but changing your speed or bundle rarely touches your email, since the account itself hasn’t closed.
- Can I transfer my broadband email address to a new provider?
- No. Email addresses tied to a provider’s domain, like a sky.com or btinternet.com address, can’t move with you to a new supplier. A personal webmail account is the only one that’s genuinely portable.
- Is a free webmail account as reliable as a broadband email address?
- Yes, and more reliable in one sense: it isn’t tied to a broadband contract you might cancel one day. That’s exactly why it makes a sensible permanent home for anything important.
Roo reckons the email worry is the broadband equivalent of keeping a chipped mug because it was a gift. Sentimental, understandable, and not actually a reason to overpay for years. Once your broadband email address is safely forwarded, our exit fees guide and moving home broadband guide cover the rest of what to check before you go.
Sources
- Choose: Can I keep my email address after switching broadband?
- Uswitch: How to keep your email address when switching broadband providers
Provider policies checked September 2026. These terms change without much notice, so confirm the current policy with your own provider before you cancel.
