unable to send emails to myself from either my bt email or from google mail etc?

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

I suspect that it is connected to you not being a BT Broadband customer and the outage that took place.

When you are no longer a BT Broadband customer the email account gets downgraded to a BTMail Basic account which can only be used on webmail.

This normally happens when a person leaves BT but there have been cases reported on the forum that a leavers email account was not downgraded, that is until they changed their password or they deleted the email account and tried to set it up again either on the same device or onto a new device all of which seemed to trigger the downgrade.

There have also been reports that it just randomly happened at a much later time after the person left BT.

When an email account is downgraded the account holder can still "manage" it through their MyBT albeit the MyBT account is basically only a holding account so that the email is "accounted" for. It is not a billing account.

Do you have a MyBT account and is the email account still showing there and is it showing account type as "standard"?

In any event I doubt that there is anything you or I or other forum users will be able to fix the problem so you will need to call BT 0330.1234.150 and ask to speak to the BTMail email team and hopefully they should be able to resolve it.

Please keep the tread updated with how you get on and what the solution is should they manage to fix it.

[reepoe]

I just spoke to them and it is working again now, although they didnt actually do anything. they said my account shows as premium even though i do not pay for it or bt internet. I explained about the beta testing i did for them and said that it must have been due to that and i was probably granted lifetime premium as i was an original tester, (i was told this at the time that my email would always be active) he confirmed my account was active since 1999 and not 2000 (when adsl launched) and that i was originally on an HG1 account, so that confirmed i was a tester for them. he also saw i had 2 email adresses @btinternet.com and @btopenworld.com  and that both were the same account. whilst i was on the phone i tested again and this time the email went through (phone to pc and then pc to phone) the person explained about the problems and said that they have had people working on it, so it must all be related to the original problem yesterday. 

i will mark this issue as resolved, thank you for all the help and espeically providing te number to call as at least i know why i am not limited to using webmail etc. over the 26 years i have setup on multiple new pc's/phones without issues.

[gg30340]

Glad to hear its sorted and thanks for the update.

[Duggee]

Nearly one year on I have discovered the same issue over the past couple of weeks this issue. I am a Premium Email subscriber and donlt expect this sort of issue to arise from a fee paying service.

Sending an email to your own email just disappears into the ether

It transpires they have to reset my account completely - then see what happens.

Spoke to a knowledgeable guy today but on previous occasions, support agents don't know much and always deny there are any issues withh their service. Very frustrating. BT please improve this Premium email service if you want to operate it.

[licquorice]

'Premium' email isn't a Premium service, it is just the name given to the standard email service for those without a BT broadband account so have to pay for it if they wish to use apps/clients.

[gg30340]

Try marking your own email address as a "Safe Sender".

[Duggee]

Well 'Premium email' is described as supporting other email clients - eg Outlook - in IMAP mode. 

Premium is meant to support this as you said yourself in 2024 this :

' Free Basic Mail for non BT broadband customers only accessible via webmail not via apps or mail clients.'.

I want to carry on using Outlook not Web mail.

Anyway whatever service BT provide me has been causing a headache with account needing reset by BT Email team and also random messages on Outlook saying your Password is incorrect ....but it isn't.

I'll monitor how things go from this time tomorrow (24 hours after account reset).

Just as a post note - I used BT broadband for years - asking BT for Fibre to the Home as I could see the Fibre cabinet from my study window.

They promised FTTH  for 2 or 3 years but it never materialised as OpenReach were busy in the road putting fibre in the street for the competitors.

Needless to say it was a no brainer to move broadband suppliers as I went from 70Meg to 1Gig overnight and at a cheaper subscription.

BTEmail was the issue though,  being embedded everywhere in my life, hence decision to keep Premium mail.

Its a pity Premium Email isn't a Premium service though 🤔

[licquorice]

---

@Duggeewrote:

Well 'Premium email' is described as supporting other email clients - eg Outlook - in IMAP mode. 

Premium is meant to support this as you said yourself in 2024 this :

' Free Basic Mail for non BT broadband customers only accessible via webmail not via apps or mail clients.'.

I want to carry on using Outlook not Web mail.

Exactly, in what way does what I've just posted contradict that?

Just as a post note - I used BT broadband for years - asking BT for Fibre to the Home as I could see the Fibre cabinet from my study window.

Except fibre to the Home doesn't come from the cabinet.

Its a pity Premium Email isn't a Premium service though 🤔

Totally misnamed.

---

[gg30340]

@Duggee 

Have you considered that your Outlook is the problem?

There have been numerous previous posts from people using Outlook that they have had the same issue.

You should try using the Thunderbird email client if for no other reason to see if the problem is with Outlook or BT. If it is with Outlook then complain to Microsoft, who will no doubt blame BT or you could just keep using Thunderbird.

[Duggee]

Well yes, Outlook is also playing up from time to time, but Outlook works with other IMAP servers I use.

With Outlook its normally deleting your Profile and creating a new one ...on rare occasions uninstall and re-install, which incidently, as you may know,  now involves uninstalling the whole Microsoft 365 suite to re-install Classic Outlook. Thanks Microsoft.😡

I'll see how things go tomorrow with the reset BT mail account and give it a few days and post any findings here.

As a back up I'll try out Thunderbird as well. Not done so yet, but thanks for the suggestion.