If I Switch Email Accounts, How Can I Let Everyone Know?

Some services let you automatically forward messages to your new address. But not all

Edward C. Baig,

AARP

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Published April 29, 2025

a truck driving across a laptop screen and moving emails

AARP (Getty Images, 3)

I’ve used AOL for my email since the early 1990s and it works well for me. I also have a Gmail account, which I seldom use. I often get comments like “I didn’t know AOL still existed,” and I am thinking that I should maybe switch to Gmail.

I have hesitated because I don’t know how to notify all the people and businesses that have my AOL address on file. Is there a way to forward AOL mail to my Gmail account automatically and have the sender notified? — Barbara P.

Let me start out with the good news that you don’t have to leave one free email service to get another, Barbara, whether that’s AOL, Gmail or another provider. You’ve already said you have Gmail.

But I also understand your reluctance: Alerting members of your circle that you have a new email address is a hassle. Plus, you worry that you won’t see critical emails sent to the address you now use the most but want to abandon.

Since you don’t have to ditch AOL during any transition, you don’t have to rush to notify everyone unless you have business or other reasons to move quickly. Adding a new email address doesn’t have to mean junking the old account, especially if each is free.

Certainly, you can dash off a single message that tells all the people in your address book that you have a new preferred email address.

Just make sure you’re using the blind carbon copy (BCC) area when you add recipients. Otherwise, everybody will see each person’s contact information, an ethical faux pas.

AOL requires manual forwarding of email

Now, to answer your question directly, AOL hasn’t supported automatic forwarding of AOL Mail for quite a while. You can forward individual emails only one at a time — hardly efficient.

One workaround for notifying people is to turn on an out-of-office/vacation message in AOL’s Mail settings that directs everyone to your new or preferred email address. Be forewarned: Along with those you want to see that address, you’ll be blabbing it out to spammy senders.

AOL may not support auto-forwarding of emails to a new provider, but other popular services do. For other readers who use different companies:

How to forward Gmail

On a computer, navigate to the gear icon representing Gmail ⚙️ Settings. Choose See all settings and select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab. Next to Forwarding, select Add a Forwarding address and enter that address.

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Click Next | Proceed | OK.

Google will seek to verify that it is you making this request. You can authenticate with a passkey, biometrics or other methods. For security reasons, Google also sends a confirmation link to the forwarding address.

Obviously, you should not click a confirmation link from someone trying to forward their own mail to you, which is likely a scam.

You can remove or withdraw a link that was inadvertently sent to the wrong email address.

Once verified in that other email account, all new messages will be forwarded there, Google says, with the exception of spam messages.

Meanwhile, in ⚙️ Settings under Forwarding, choose what happens with the Gmail copy of your emails. Click the Forward a copy of incoming mail, add the email address, and then, following Google’s recommendation and my own, Keep Gmail’s copy in the inbox.

Click Disable forwarding if you change your mind about forwarding.

You’ll also see an option in Settings to forward only some of your email by clicking create filter. I won’t go into all the details, but the gist is you can filter emails to forward by sender, subject, words and other parameters.

How to forward Outlook.com Mail

On a computer, head to ⚙️ Settings | Mail | Forwarding and IMAP. Sign in again to your Outlook account; Microsoft may employ two-factor authentication to verify you.

This isn’t the Outlook app that you may have for work or personally if you have a Microsoft Office suite of programs.

Choose Enable forwarding so a checkmark appears, and add the email address you wish to forward to. Click Keep a copy of forwarded messages to do just that, similar to the method in Gmail that I recommend. Hit Save.

To undo the forwarding of Outlook mail, remove the checkmark from Enable forwarding and choose Save.

How to forward Apple iCloud Mail

Visit iCloud.com/mail and sign in with your Apple account. Click ⚙️ Settings at the top of your Mailboxes list | Forwarding | Forward my email to.

You can check a Delete message after forwarding box, but only choose this option, if even then, after validating the address you’re sending to. Deleted messages cannot be restored, Apple says. Consider it a tradeoff since stored copies of messages count against your total iCloud storage limits, which is 5 gigabytes (GB) for free.

Automatic forwarding of Yahoo Mail isn’t free

Ask the Tech Guru

On a computer, click the ⋯ More options icon, which appears in the left rail of the screen. Click ⚙️ Settings | Mailboxes and under Mailbox list, click the primary mailbox account, which should be your current Yahoo email address. Under Auto-forwarding, enter the forwarding address, click Verify and head to that forwarding address to follow instructions.

A catch: If you’re not already a premium subscriber, you must upgrade to Yahoo Mail Plus, which after a 14-day free trial, costs $5 a month. Auto-forwarding is not available as part of Yahoo’s standard Mail service.

Bonus tip: Log into AOL Mail annually to keep account active

The company formerly known as America Online was once synonymous with email, at least to folks in the dial-up internet era who remember the "You’ve Got Mail" voice that notified users of incoming messages. Even if you weren’t online then, you probably remember the 1998 Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan movie of the same name.

AOL has been merged, bought and sold through the years, but AOL Mail still exists today. If you haven’t used your free AOL Mail much in recent years, you must drop by at least once every 12 months to keep that mailbox active.

Email purged from an inactive mailbox cannot be restored, AOL says.

You can pay $12 a year for what’s called Extended AOL Mail. It lets you retain all your emails, plus any attachments, even if you don’t log in for long stretches.

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Edward C. Baig covers technology and other consumer topics. He previously worked for USA Today, BusinessWeek, U.S. News & World Report and Fortune, and is author of Macs for Dummies and coauthor of iPhone for Dummies and iPad for Dummies. Follow him on LinkedIn; Threads; and X, formerly known as Twitter.