Workarounds for VPN + BT Email

[stickybloke]

I travel overseas a lot and frequently use a VPN (ExpressVPN).  This regularly causes BT security to lock out my BT Email (through iOS Mail app) as, I guess, the system thinks I’m hopping around the world very rapidly as I switch in and out of my VPN.

Is there a clever setting (a port or something) that I can use to stop this?  I’ve had to reset my email password 6 times in the last 10 days because of this behaviour and that shouldn’t be necessary nowadays.

My previous workaround has been to set my BT email to just forward everything to my Gmail account but I’m finding that the BT email system keeps disabling the auto forward too.

If didn’t have so many of my accounts, logins etc linked to my BT email address I’d just bin it but sadly that’s not possible.  Need to find a workable fix.

[Keith_Beddoe]

https://www.bt.com/products/static/terms/feb2017btmail.html

Paragraph 7 is worth a read.

Paragraph 14 also, you could end up losing the email accounts.

[stickybloke]

Thanks for the reply.

I’m a UK-based long haul airline pilot.  Para 7 doesn’t apply.  I don’t think I’m breaching Paras 14 & 15 in any way nor have I since getting the email address back in about 1998.

I’m just to curious to know if there’s a way to use a VPN with BT Email without the security locking me out every time 🤷🏼‍♂️

[jac_95]

If you have the experience or want to try as a DIY project you could set up your own VPN server at your home address in the UK and then connect your devices to that using a VPN client and profile. This would also allow you to connect to your home network.

You can even set one up on a raspberry pi. Best to use a ddns address otherwise you'll be constantly needing to update your client configuration profile.

[gg30340]

I don't understand why your forwarding of BTMail stops working unless you are no longer a BT Broadband customer or paying for your email via a BTPremium email account.

Instead of forwarding have tried setting up your BTMail account to be accessed from your gmail account.

It however may still have the same issue because the BT servers will still need to be used by gmail but it could be worth a try.

If your VPN lets you set the location of its servers you could set it to a UK location which might not trigger their security system.

[Crizzle]

I had a similar issue whereby BitDefender VPN was preventing me from sending messages via bt email. Setting the location of the VPN server to UK/Automatic solved the issue.