This is a compiled reference of consumer email services that have shut down, rebranded, or been absorbed since the late 1990s. Each entry links to a dedicated migration guide covering what happened, the official successor path where one exists, and independent alternatives (Gmail, Outlook.com) for former users. If a service you relied on is no longer accepting mail or you cannot reach its webmail interface anymore, this page is the starting point.
The pattern is remarkably consistent across geographies: a portal or ISP-tied consumer mail service launched during the dot-com era or the early 2000s broadband rollout, ran for 10 to 20 years, then either shut down (Lycos Europe, Deutsche Post E-POST, Dreamwiz), was rebranded into a successor identity (Vipnet to A1, NetCom to Telia), or was absorbed into a larger operator whose consumer offering displaced the original brand (Online.de to United Internet, Prodigy Mexico to Infinitum Mail).
Your email service was discontinued and you need to migrate? Find the provider below, follow the linked migration guide for the official successor (if there is one), and consider Gmail or Outlook.com if you would rather move to a provider-independent address that stays yours regardless of ISP changes. If you are still able to sign in to the old service, enable forwarding and export your mail before the shutdown window closes.
Discontinued vs legacy: how to tell them apart
Not every retired brand is fully gone. Some services shut down completely with no successor path (Lycos Europe on February 15, 2009; Deutsche Post E-POST in December 2020); others rebranded but preserved the mail infrastructure under a new identity, with pre-existing addresses continuing to work as aliases (Vipnet Croatia to A1 Hrvatska, October 2018; Chello.nl to Ziggo, April 2015; AON.at to A1 Telekom Austria, November 2017). The distinction matters because it changes the practical response.
| Category | What it means | Where to go |
|---|---|---|
| Discontinued | Service is fully shut down. Mailboxes closed. No successor mail platform or a successor exists but the old address is not preserved. | This page. Migration guide for each service links to the official successor (if any) and independent options. |
| Legacy still-active | Brand retired but the address still works as an alias on the successor’s mail infrastructure. Mail client needs successor’s IMAP/SMTP settings. | Legacy email providers guide |
Historical timeline: consumer email services that shut down or rebranded
Chronological reference from oldest confirmed shutdown to most recent. Each row links to the dedicated migration guide covering the details.
By region: where former users should look for a successor
| Region | Discontinued services | Typical successor path |
|---|---|---|
| Nordic (Sweden, Norway, Denmark) | Spray, Passagen, Com Hem, Bredbandsbolaget, Tele2 Norway, NetCom Norway, TDC.dk | Telia Norge (Norway), Nuuday brands (Denmark), or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. Note: no viable Swedish free consumer email remains in 2026 (Bredbandsbolaget, Com Hem, Tele2 and Telenor webmails all discontinued); Gmail or Outlook.com is the practical replacement, with Bahnhof for privacy-focused paid alternatives. |
| Central Europe (Germany, Austria) | Deutsche Post E-POST, Online.de | United Internet consumer brands (GMX, Web.de) for German users; provider-independent Gmail or Outlook. |
| Iberia (Spain, Portugal) | Terra Spain, Hispavista.com, Clix.pt, Iol.pt | Movistar (Spain) if bundled with Telefónica broadband; Sapo.pt (MEO/Altice Portugal) for Portuguese users; provider-independent Gmail or Outlook. Sooma offers a paid @clix.pt address if you want to keep that domain. |
| Balkans | Vip mobile Serbia, Vipnet Croatia | A1 Srbija (Serbia), A1 Hrvatska (Croatia), or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. |
| Eastern Europe (Ukraine) | Yandex.ua | Ukr.net, Meta.ua, or provider-independent Gmail. Not a commercial retirement: geopolitical sanctions. |
| East Asia (Korea, Japan) | Dreamwiz, Paran, Excite Japan | Naver or Daum (Korea), Yahoo Japan Mail or Biglobe (Japan), or provider-independent Gmail. |
| Latin America (Mexico) | Prodigy Mexico | Infinitum Mail (Telmex successor), or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. |
| Latin America (Argentina) | Speedy.com.ar, Infovia, Satlink, CPS, AdvancedSL | Movistar Argentina discontinued all five consumer email domains together on 31 July 2021 with no successor infrastructure. Migrate to provider-independent Gmail / Outlook / Yahoo, or Fibertel (Telecom Argentina) for ISP-bundled option. |
| East Asia (Hong Kong / mainland China) | Tom.com free tier | Paid VIP tier at mail.tom.com continues (from 15 yuan/mo). Free tier users should move to QQ Mail (Tencent), 163.com / 126.com (NetEase), Sina Mail, or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. |
| Pacific (Australia) | Exemail / Exetel, plus TPG Telecom brands (iiNet, Internode, TPG.com.au) | The Messaging Company (paid, closed to new @exemail.com.au signups after 9 Dec 2025), Aussie Broadband (up to 5 free addresses with broadband), or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. Australian ISP-provided email is in broad retreat: Optus and Telstra stopped offering to new customers; Starlink and Launtel never offered. |
| North America (USA) | Netscape Mail | AOL Mail (still hosts pre-existing @netscape.net addresses), or provider-independent Gmail / Outlook. |
By cause: what actually retired each service
Bounce and deliverability risk from writing to discontinued domains
If you are sending marketing or transactional mail and have older records in your list, addresses on discontinued domains are a bounce risk. Some patterns to watch for:
- Hard bounces from fully shut-down services (@spray.se, @dreamwiz.com after 2019, @excite.co.jp after ~2021, @epost.de after 2020). The domain still resolves in DNS but there is no MX target accepting mail; SMTP returns 550 or the connection is refused. Prune these addresses on the first hard bounce.
- Soft bounces trending to hard from services in extended decline (Hispavista, Passagen post-acquisition). The mail server accepts and later returns non-delivery reports, or accepts and silently drops. Watch bounce rates by domain and remove domains that trend upward.
- Address-preserved rebrands where the mailbox still works but the sender’s SPF and DKIM policies may have changed (@vip.hr on A1 infrastructure, @chello.nl on Ziggo). Delivery usually works but occasional temporary failures happen when the successor updates authentication requirements.
- Legacy aliases on active successor infra (@aon.at on A1, @club-internet.fr on SFR, @netscape.net on AOL, @paran.com via Daum): generally reliable delivery target; treat these as normal.
Pre-validating recipient addresses before send catches most of the fully-defunct domains. SMTPing flags these plus disposables and catch-alls so you do not damage sender reputation by delivering to dead mailboxes.
Frequently asked questions
My email service was discontinued and I did not export before shutdown. Can I recover data?
Generally no. Most consumer email shutdowns explicitly state that mail data will not be transferred to another provider (Lycos Europe 2009 announcement was explicit on this). If the service migrated your subscription to a successor operator, the successor may hold historical records; otherwise recovery is not possible. Going forward, enable POP3 or IMAP backup to a local client or a second provider as soon as any service you use announces a shutdown timeline.
My old address still receives mail sometimes. Is the service really discontinued?
Two possibilities. Either the address was migrated to a successor’s infrastructure and continues to work as an alias (Vip.hr on A1, Chello.nl on Ziggo, Netscape.net on AOL) or your address is on a domain where MX records still route somewhere and mail is being accepted but not delivered to a mailbox you can access. Check the successor’s customer area to confirm whether the address is provisioned there; if not, plan a migration promptly.
Should I stay on a legacy address that still works, or migrate to Gmail?
Depends on how attached you are to the address and how likely it is to keep working long-term. Legacy addresses on active successor infrastructure (AON.at, Chello.nl, Wanadoo.fr, Netscape.net) are generally stable for the medium term because the successor operator continues to run the mail platform. Provider-independent options (Gmail, Outlook.com) are more resilient because they do not depend on your ISP or portal continuing to exist. For long-term correspondence and account recovery, provider-independent mail is safer.
How can I tell if a domain in my mailing list is discontinued?
The most reliable signal is repeated hard bounces from the same domain with SMTP 550 responses or connection refused, with the pattern spread across multiple recipients on that domain. A single bounce may be an individual mailbox issue; a batch of bounces from the same domain is a domain-level problem. Cross-check with WHOIS and MX records (does the domain still resolve? do MX records point to an active mail server?). Pre-send validation tools like SMTPing return specific verdicts for defunct domains.
My email address ends in a domain not listed here. What should I do?
Not every legacy email service has a dedicated guide yet. Check the legacy email providers reference for still-active legacy addresses first. If your service does not appear on either page and you cannot reach its webmail, try the successor operator (if the ISP was acquired or rebranded), and if that fails, migrate to Gmail or Outlook and notify contacts of your new address.
Why do so many portal email services fail?
Consumer portal mail was largely an ad-supported business, and the economics of ad-supported mail deteriorated after Gmail’s 2004 launch redefined free mailbox expectations (larger storage, no ad-per-email model). Portal operators either could not match the feature set at scale (Lycos Europe, Excite Japan, Passagen), got absorbed by ISPs whose consumer email offering displaced theirs (Terra, Prodigy), or exited email deliberately to focus on other business lines (Deutsche Post E-POST, Data-World after acquiring Passagen).
Where to go next
- Legacy email providers guide (still-active legacy addresses)
- Complete email providers directory
- Gmail POP3, IMAP, and SMTP settings
- Outlook.com POP3, IMAP, and SMTP settings
Sending mail from a new address after migrating off a discontinued service? Pre-validating recipient addresses with SMTPing before you press send catches disposables, catch-alls, and dead mailboxes (including domains on this page) that would otherwise hurt your deliverability. Thirteen validation types, twenty-five free checks daily, no card required. Try SMTPing free.
About the Author
Alaa · LinkedIn
Email infrastructure specialist with 8+ years of hands-on experience in SMTP, deliverability, and email verification. I’ve configured and troubleshot mail systems across Postfix, Exchange, and cloud relays, managed IP reputation and warmup campaigns, and built verification pipelines processing millions of addresses. My work spans DNS authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, BIMI), bounce handling, blocklist monitoring, and compliance frameworks including CAN-SPAM and GDPR. I write every article on SMTPedia to give email professionals, developers, and marketers the accurate, RFC-grounded reference they need.
About SMTPedia
SMTPedia is an independent email industry reference covering SMTP, IMAP, POP3, email deliverability, marketing platforms, DNS authentication, and email verification. Every article is researched from official provider documentation, IETF RFCs, and industry best practices. Settings and configurations are verified quarterly.
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