- 1). Notify all of your family and friends that you are deactivating your current email address. If you have a new email address, give it to the individuals you want to have it. This will ensure that new messages are not sent to your deactivated address in error.
- 2). Log in to your email account. Check all of your email folders for important messages you want to keep. If you see a message you want to keep, save the contents of the message to your computer's hard drive or a USB flash drive.
- 3). Contact your email service provider. Advise the customer service representative that you would like to deactivate your email address. In most cases, you will have to authenticate your identity before the representative can oblige.
If you are using free email services, such as GMail, Hotmail and Yahoo, you can request to cancel your email account using an online request form. To access the request form, visit the email service provider's "Help Center." Perform a search for "Close Account." You will then see a link that contains step-by-step instructions for deactivating your email address.
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