Most commonly with free e-mail services, people often aren’t happy with the e-mail addresses that are available. After a while they want a new e-mail address that’s “cooler” or more descriptive.

Depending on the e-mail service you’re using, and how much effort you want to put into things, changing your e-mail address can be either easy, or hard. More likely it’ll be somewhere in between.

Hotmail, Yahoo! and other free services: There’s really no way to change an e-mail address. The best you can do is create a new account with a new name, and start using it, and at the same time simply stop using the old account with the old name. Remember, these are free, and you get what you pay for.

AOL, MSN, Earthlink and other large ISPs: Since these are services you do pay for, they often have some more flexibility. Unfortunately, it’s often your e-mail address that identifies your account with these services, so if you want a new e-mail address, you need to create a new account. Much like the free services above, you would then start using the new account and e-mail address and stop using the old account and e-mail address. The good news here is that, unlike the free services, most major ISPs have e-mail forwarding services available, so that e-mail sent to your old account can be automatically forwarded to your new one. It’s also worth checking with the ISP directly - some may support a more complete solution to changing your e-mail address - but exactly if, how, and how much will vary widely.

Small ISPs: There are thousands of small Internet service providers out there that are providing connectivity to large numbers of people. The only advice I have here is to ask them. They may be of no help at all (in which case you’d simply create a new account with a new name, and phase out your old account), or they may bend over backwards to help you make the transition transparently. There’s no standard solution, so what they provide will vary greatly. Ask them.

But all the cool names are taken!

Yes, they are.

When you go to a major ISP or free e-mail service, thousands, perhaps millions, of people were there ahead of you. All the simple, easy to remember, or “cool” names are already in use by someone else. That’s why when you ask for your first name as an e-mail name, the service may respond by recommending instead that name followed by a string of random numbers. “Leo” is probably taken, but “Leo83545″ may not be. There’s simply no way around this, other than perhaps trying different variations, or different free services, until you find something you like. Pay services are probably even less flexible, and may well simply assign you a name without any flexibility.

The most bulletproof solution is to register your own domain name. If you’re even a little Internet-savvy, it’s not difficult to do so yourself, and many ISPs will also do it for you. For an annual fee you get your own Internet domain, like “example.com.” Most registrars and ISPs will then provide e-mail forwarding, so that “you@example.com” can automatically be forwarded to whatever your “real” e-mail account is. Even if you change your real e-mail from a free Hotmail account to a Yahoo! account to an MSN or AOL account - changing where “you@example.com” goes to means your e-mail will always reach you.

And when you have your own domain name, all e-mail addresses on that domain are yours to do with as you wish.

Even the cool ones.

For additional related links, see
How do I change my e-mail address? at Ask Leo!.