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BTConnect email addresses and how to access your email

BethM
Administrator
Administrator

There's been a number of posts on here asking about the future of BTConnect email addresses. Just to confirm - there's currently no plans to remove BTConnect email addresses, the only change is that basic authentication has been replaced by modern authentication so you will need to log in via webmail to access your emails now. You can find out more here in our FAQs. 

 

How can I access my btconnect.com mailbox?

You can access your mailbox:

  • At outlook.office.com (this is browser-based access).
  • Via business.bt.com, My Account (which links to office.com).
  • Using the Outlook Application on mobile devices.

I don't know my password

The username and password used to access your btconnect.com mailbox are the same as you use to login in to My Account.

Find out how to recover your login details.   


^BethM
33 REPLIES 33

jbuelens
Member

I’m another recipient (20 years on btconnect) of BT’s good-news email. Great, my email security was being improved. But why does losing email clients have to be part of the deal? Microsoft has more information on the changes, so the email continues, please read this article on their site. Except when I read the article, nothing in it suggests that the end of basic authentication means the end of mail clients. "All versions of Outlook for Windows since 2016 have Modern authentication enabled by default", so the Microsoft article says. So why is BT telling me otherwise?

BT's attitude seems to be we're losing the outlook client and it doesn't matter, let's all sing the praises of webmail. Except that it does matter. Losing email client support means losing essential functionality. In my case:

  1. Offline access. I have always carried my email with me on my laptop. The day may come when on-the-go network access is as cheap and ubiquitous as the air we breathe, but until that day arrives, I want an email client on my laptop, just like I want word & excel.
  2. The ability to manage all my email accounts from one place.
  3. The ability to save emails as files. I routinely save all files (documents, spreadsheets, photos... - and emails) relating to one topic together in a folder structure. Webmail (OWA) provides no obvious way to save an email as a file.
  4. Archives. I have 2 decades' worth of archived emails sitting in local files. I can navigate and search them in outlook, but not in OWA.

tdl
Member

Once you go to outlook.office.com and login you can collect your emails using the online client, if you click the three dots on the top right of the page in chrome and go to more tools, then create shortcut it will give you a desktop shortcut that looks like outlook.

Now right click on the desktop shortcut and choose pin to taskbar and the Outlook shortcut will be at the bottom of your screen (Window 10) or drag the shortcut from the desktop to the taskbar in Windows 11.

It is not quite the same but it will work, you can change the colour to look like the old Outlook in the settings.

Hope this helps.

Sainswo5
Member

Well BethM - what a Marketing Disaster!

In one fell swoop BT has succeeded in seriously miffing a whole Customer Base.....

I hope whoever the "Genius" is who decided to do this has been tasked with answering the Phones to personally explain why, and then resolve all the issues they have caused......

So, I have downloaded the Outlook App on my iPhone as you recommend, but it asks me to set up the Account as an IMAP and not POP Account - what settings should I use???

One day these spotty face "Geniuses" will be forced to understand that "if it isn't broken, don't fix it" - and yes, I still have to use Windows 7 in some Industrial Applications, as Windows10/11 are not considered dsafe to use....

kelper
Guru

If you have industrial applications using embedded  Windows 7 or 8, they are not secure.  It's nonsensical to say that Windows 10/11 is not secure!

Asteel794
Member

Good morning

 

Despite a number of attempts by me to get BT to actually SHUT DOWN my old btconnect email address ( the account was CLOSED at least 7 years ago, I am STILL getting spam emails redirected from that btconnect account to my own address supplied by another provider.  Will this change to btconnect FINALLY mean that I willno longer receive spam email from an account that was supposedly closed down?

Many thanks

jrhewitson
Member

How do we send an email from this fancy 'outlook' screen, we might wonder?

porterrm
Member

Beth.  I have been a BT Business user for many years and use Thunderbird as my email system.  Forcing me to use web based Microsoft Outlook or phone app is a big backward step as it is a seriously deficient application and I don't want to be forced to use Microsoft.  It also makes me dependant on Microsoft for storing my mail rather than using a local facility.   This change is hugely disruptive for me so can you please facilitate the ability for Thunderbird to access my mail service.  Roger

mollymaggie
Member

Beth,

 

Anyone want to group together to buy the btconnect.com domain from BT and have it hosted on an upgraded server?  It would seem that's our only hope!  BT are being entirely disingenuous in the way this change has come about and the way they have communicated it. 

 

The fact that we can no longer access our emails via desktop outlook (for example), and can now only access email via web or phone, is entirely as a result of BT, not Microsoft. 

 

Microsoft are indeed moving away from Basic Authentication, which in itself is undoubtedly a good thing, to, as you say, a more modern authentication which requires more than just a username and password.  I have other email accounts that were previously set up as POP3 accounts which Microsoft have been able to show me how to access in desktop Outlook using the more modern authentication.  This isn't something unusual, but something their 1st line tech support are doing every day (they have a script for it and even a script for setting up brand new accounts in this way).

 

However, in order for it to work, the email server has to be upgraded and it is this that BT, in their wisdom, have decided not to do, presumably in the hope that more people will walk away from the btconnect.com emails.

 

Shame on BT - by definition, this effects their "oldest" clients.  Loyal (and also, it turns out, misguided!) clients like many of us on here that have been with BT for as long as BT has been a private company.  I have had my btconnect.com emails for 35+ years!

 

I have tried sorting this (for BT and other POP3 email accounts I have) by phone today...

 

Microsoft - 1 phone call, about 15 mins, including guiding me through the changes required for one (non-BT) email account.

Ionos - 1 10 min call - not particularly helpful, but enough info to help me understand that SiteGround could migrate email account away from Ionos.

SiteGround - They have upgraded their email servers to allow the new authentication - 1 15 min call followed by clear and details instructions.  

 

But BT - well, I think I am up to about 16 calls now and after a full day (it's now gone 7pm), I have managed to achieve nothing.  One poor person told me that she is dealing with 6-7 calls from irate btconnect email owners a day. 

 

So, I have followed the advice on the BT website re their complaints procedure (actually it takes you on a circle of several pages, but eventually you can find a number)...    Ironically, the automated call routing system is unable to understand the word "complaint", though I cannot imagine I was the first to use it today!!!  Their own complaints procedure states:  "If you are not happy with how the agent is handling your complaint, please ask to speak to their manager."  Clearly no one has told the agents this as they have repeatedly refused to either raise a complaint, put me through to their manager (inevitably they either didn't have a manager, or the managers were all in a meeting, or they were not allowed to pass me to a manager, or the manager would only tell me the same thing, etc, etc, etc!).  

 

As I started with - Anyone want to group together and buy the btconnect.com domain from BT and have it hosted on an upgraded server?  It would seem that's our only hope!

 

 

stpjg011
Member

Hi Beth - my situation is a little different in that like a lot of BT employees I am not the primary user of the account so can only do minimal changes to my 4 email addresses ie cant change my password.
I'm rather a technophobe and logged into the new outlook but cant see any of the folders i have on my present outlook and dont know how to transfer them.

Can someone email me with a contact number of someone who can walk me thru this before the change and i lose everything please?

thanks

DonnTechSupport
Member

Since the migration last week, all our emails are being sent in the name of a dead person! We would like this to be changed but cannot contact anyone in BT IT Admin to do so, as they are the administrators of the account. (I have tried the MyBT route without success). Can you forward contact details of someone in that department please. Thanks in advance