Excite Japan (excite.co.jp) launched during Japan’s dot-com era as a localized Japanese portal alongside the global Excite family (Excite USA, Excite France, and other national properties). The portal offered search, news, community content, broadband ISP services under the BB.excite brand, and a bundled consumer email service. Around 2021 Excite Japan’s standalone consumer mail service was discontinued as part of a wider retirement of Excite-branded mail across every country except the United States. The excite.co.jp portal itself continues to operate as a content site with millions of monthly visitors, but the mail component is gone. This guide covers what happened and how to move to Gmail, Outlook, or a Japanese portal alternative.
Excite Japan Mail is discontinued: no working settings exist
Service shutdown: around 2021. Excite Japan retired its standalone consumer email service. The @excite.co.jp mailboxes were decommissioned and no SMTP, IMAP, or POP3 configuration will connect. The wider excite.co.jp portal continues to operate for news and content, and the BB.excite broadband ISP business continues, but the free consumer webmail is gone. As of 2026, the only mail service bearing the Excite name is Excite.com in the United States, which is a separate operation. No port change, TLS setting, or username variation will fix a @excite.co.jp configuration. The migration options below are the path forward.
What happened to Excite Japan mail
Excite Japan launched excite.co.jp in 1997 as one of the earliest Japanese consumer web portals, tracking the trajectory of its US parent Excite Inc. during the late-1990s portal boom. It offered search, news, community content, and a bundled consumer webmail service under the @excite.co.jp domain. Over the 2000s Excite Japan also built the BB.excite broadband ISP business, which continues to operate as its main revenue-generating service today.
The consumer webmail service peaked in the late 2000s but stagnated afterwards. Free storage was increased from 4 MB to 1 GB in August 2013 and to 2 GB in March 2014, but no significant feature updates followed. Japanese consumer email attention had migrated to mobile carrier mail (Docomo, KDDI/au, Softbank) for daily use and to Gmail and Yahoo Japan for cross-device access; standalone portal mail lost relevance.
Around 2021 Excite Japan retired the standalone consumer mail service. This was part of a broader retirement of Excite-branded mail across the international Excite family; as of the early 2020s, the only mail service still using the Excite name is Excite.com in the United States. The excite.co.jp portal continues as a content site with roughly 2 to 2.5 million monthly visitors (2025 estimates), but the mail component is gone.
Option 1: Migrate to Gmail (recommended)
Because @excite.co.jp addresses were not preserved through the mail retirement, most former users moved to provider-independent international mail. Gmail is the standard destination for anyone wanting a globally-portable address; create a Gmail account and send a change-of-address notification to your contact list including your old @excite.co.jp so recipients can search and update.
Option 2: Migrate to Outlook.com
Outlook.com works the same as Gmail for the migration workflow. Best fit if you already use OneDrive, Office online, or a Microsoft 365 subscription.
Option 3: Migrate to a Japanese portal alternative
If you prefer to stay on a Japanese consumer webmail platform, Yahoo Japan Mail (@yahoo.co.jp) is the largest still-active option. Docomo, au (KDDI), and Softbank mobile carrier email addresses are also common daily-use identities in Japan. For a still-active portal option, Biglobe and So-net remain in the Japanese ISP-mail space.
Alternatives at a glance
Common issues after Excite Japan mail retirement
Mail client returns connection refused for excite.co.jp servers
Standalone Excite Japan mail hostnames were retired around 2021. There is no active @excite.co.jp mail service to reconfigure against.
Cannot sign in to Excite Japan webmail
Excite Japan webmail was retired. The excite.co.jp portal front page continues as a content site with news, articles, and access to the BB.excite ISP customer area, but the mail login is gone.
@excite.co.jp address stopped receiving mail
Expected. The address is retired. Contacts still sending to @excite.co.jp need to be notified of your new address.
Excite Japan account confused with BB.excite ISP account
BB.excite is Excite Japan’s still-active broadband ISP business (BB.excite コネクト IPoE, BB.excite MEC Hikari, BB.excite Hikari Fit, BB.excite Hikari 10G). Those subscriptions continue to exist and have their own customer areas, but they do not preserve or restore the retired standalone Excite webmail service.
Frequently asked questions
Is @excite.co.jp still working in 2026?
No. The standalone Excite Japan consumer email service was retired around 2021. As of 2026, the only mail service bearing the Excite name is Excite.com in the United States. Japanese users need to migrate to Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo Japan Mail, or another provider.
Is Excite Japan (excite.co.jp) portal completely gone?
No, the portal continues as a content site with roughly 2 to 2.5 million monthly visitors (2025 estimates). Only the mail service was retired. Excite Japan also continues to operate the BB.excite broadband ISP business, which is now the company’s main revenue-generating service.
What is BB.excite?
Excite Japan’s broadband ISP brand, offering IPoE connectivity and fiber services. Distinct from the retired Excite webmail; BB.excite continues to operate. Products include BB.excite コネクト IPoE, BB.excite MEC Hikari, and BB.excite Hikari 10G.
What is the best Japanese webmail alternative?
Yahoo Japan Mail (@yahoo.co.jp) is the largest still-active Japanese consumer webmail service and the direct category successor for former Excite Japan mail users. For provider-independent mail, Gmail or Outlook.com are the international standards.
What about Excite.com (US)?
The US Excite property continues to operate a free consumer webmail service (My Excite) at excite.com. It uses different infrastructure and account system from Excite Japan; a former @excite.co.jp user cannot recover their Japanese account through Excite.com.
Where to go next
- Yahoo Mail settings for POP3, IMAP, and SMTP
- Biglobe email settings for POP3, IMAP, and SMTP
- Gmail POP3, IMAP, and SMTP settings
- Outlook.com POP3, IMAP, and SMTP settings
Historical timeline of Excite Japan mail
- 2026: excite.co.jp portal continues as a content site with millions of monthly visitors; BB.excite broadband ISP business continues. Standalone consumer webmail service has been retired for several years.
- ~2021: Excite Japan retires standalone consumer mail service. Part of wider retirement of Excite-branded mail across international properties.
- March 2014: Excite Mail Japan free storage upgraded to 2 GB, up from 1 GB (August 2013), which had already been an upgrade from 4 MB. Last major mail feature update.
- 1997: Excite Japan (excite.co.jp) launched as localized Japanese portal alongside the global Excite family. Provided search, news, community content, and bundled consumer webmail.
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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.
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