Question: I am an avid reader of your column in the Northwest Florida Daily News. I am old and not very tech savvy, so I appreciate your solutions. I use Cox for my email. Cox is switching to Yahoo as their server for cox.net email users. In attempting to switch to Yahoo, but continue to use my cox.net address, I stopped receiving emails on my devices. Cox tech support helped me get emails restored on my iPad and iPhone, but were unable to help update email reception on my Desktop or Laptop computers which use Windows 10. If I go to Yahoo.com in my Edge browser, I can get my emails that way, but I want to get emails just by clicking on the Envelope Icon. Cox tech support handed me off to Yahoo tech support both times I asked for help with my computers. Yahoo was no help in that I had difficulty understanding the foreign person’s English. Please help.
– Lester D.
Mary Esther, Florida
Answer: Okay, Lester from Mary Esther! As an avid reader, I’m sure you know that yours is not the first question I’ve answered on the topic of Cox switching their e-mail customers to Yahoo!. I answered those as best I could, given my knowledge of the situation (bearing in mind that I am neither a Cox nor a Yahoo! customer.) Several readers were kind enough to write in and point out that this transition somehow includes being able to retain your Cox e-mail address. Again, my unfamiliarity was blatantly showcased here, because it seemed like what was being described to me was only going to result in everybody having two e-mail addresses where they used to have only one. It was not clear to me whether the Cox email is simply being re-directed to Yahoo’s email servers, or something else, assuming Cox’s ultimate goal is to shut down their email servers and get out of the email business altogether. That seems like a strange goal to me if they truly wish to be a full-up Internet Service Provider. One of the services people need and expect is email, so I leave that to you, dear readers, to ponder.
So, I did some deeper research, including a lot of reading on both Cox’s and Yahoo’s websites, and I think I finally understand what they’re doing. The Cox e-mail servers will indeed be going away, but not the Cox e-mail addresses. The accounts are simply being rehosted onto Yahoo’s servers, but using the Cox account names. You won’t have an @yahoo.com e-mail address per se, and everything about your old @cox.com address will remain the same except the name of the e-mail servers that you use to send and receive e-mail.
Cox and Yahoo! have a supposedly automated process to set this up, but the whole rehost operation is so confusing that many people seem to be getting lost along the way. It’s probably just as easy to set it up from scratch, whether that’s on an iDevice or a PC. To start, Lester, you’re going to need the password for your @cox.com account. If you don’t know it, you’ll need to go to the Cox email login page, click “Forgot Password” and follow the prompts.
Next, on your either your iPhone or iPad, open the Settings app. Scroll down until you find “Mail” and click it. Then click “Accounts” and then “Add Account.” You’ll find a convenient automated setup for Yahoo! right on this page. Click it. You might be prompted to download the Yahoo! Mail app. You can do that if you want, but I recommend getting the mail working first, and then going back and doing add-ons.
Once you’re to this point, you essentially have it. Follow the prompts and even though you’re establishing a Yahoo! account, enter the credentials for your Cox email, that is, your Cox email address and password. Follow the rest of the prompts, and you will start to receive your Cox email through Yahoo’s servers.
It’s going to be a guess on my part, but when you say “the Envelope Icon” I’m guessing you’re talking about either Outlook or the Windows built-in Mail app. I suppose the distinction is moot, because Microsoft is transitioning users of the Windows Mail app to “the New Outlook” so you’re going to end up using Outlook no matter what. Unfortunately for my attempts to assist you, Cox has said that additional information will be sent to tell you how to setup the account on Outlook. As I’m not a Cox customer, I’ve not been privy to the contents of that information. However, there is plenty of information online about how to setup a new account in Outlook. Just remember as you walk this path, you’re going to use your Cox.com email credentials, but Yahoo’s email server information.
To view additional content, comment on articles, or submit a question of your own, visit my website at ItsGeekToMe.co (not .com!)
