Outlook won't create subfolders for new account

Well at least you know it is happening and can get to work. Imagine all those that will find out with a 30 day warning.

I would check your Cox options / settings. Two things you are looking for

1) Mail Forwarding - you set this up to forward your mail to your new address. (If Forwarding has the option I use keep a copy and forward. This might mean you have to delete mail twice but it allows you to see who is using the old address. )

2) Vacation Responder or Auto Responder - different products have different names for this feature. In it you tell people of your new address. So when they send you an email it sends them an email in which you advise them of new address.

You let both of these processes run as long as Cox keeps their mail so the transition is gradual for all.


There is the ugly process of changing all your sign ins. This is real work and why I tell my clients to get off ISP mail addresses even if the new address is only used for web site sign ins.

Some of our ISP's use the email address to keep people on their service. You go to change and they say what about contacts, what about your sign ins.

rwhit said:

Since I was not having success, I called Cox Customer Support. After logging into my system and looking around for a while, he informed me that my problem was one of many that have been reported on Cox webmail. He said that it is their program and provide it for free if you sign up for Cox Internet service. Since they don't charge for it, he claims that they have no incentive to develop it further or fix bugs. In fact he said that Cox is going to drop the program all together. When I asked what i should do with my email problem, he told me to use Gmail instead! When I griped that I would have to inform hundreds of people of the change of my email address, he said to link my Cox account to my Gmail account. But he couldn't assure me that it would work reliably and it would only be good until Cox stops offering email services, He also said that Cox has stopped allowing users to create additional email addresses to prevent expansion of Cox email. Not a great response from a large supplier of Internet, phone, and cable throughout the US!!

If the Cox technician told all that and move to Gmail; they shouldn't be working in anyone's tech support; and if they worked for me would be fired.

Basically he said was is "I don't feel like messing with this, get another app and call it a day". I've met some lazy tech support people, and most definitely some on Cox.... like the one saying their service is incompatible with Outlook. This is like saying Goodyear tires are incompatible with Chevy's.

That said, suggest you call again and speak to another technician while also informing them of the sheer stupidity of the answer you previously got.

Anyway, as I said, I've got a Cox email account, and use the Outlook 365 desktop app (as well as to phone app). There are no issues. These are the auto settings used for my cox account. I'm in north east VA.

Caledon Ken said:

Some of our ISP's use the email address to keep people on their service. You go to change and they say what about contacts, what about your sign ins.

@Caledon Ken, not sure what they do in Canada, but here is the US, this ISP (Cox cable) isn't the boogie man you think. Yeah, they're still an Internet Service Provider, but you are not "bound" to use their email account. You get one because you have a Cox account but you're not obligated to use it.

Agree @sygnus21

Exactly the same here. No one has to use but they sure like it when you do.

What I was pointing out, and I've had this repeatedly, a customer starts with an ISP, says Rogers Cable. They get an email address for free. Great. They use it for years as their primary sign in id on the web and give it to their friends, doctors, associations, monitoring companies, etc.

Then they get an offer to switch to say Bell Canada. ( The big guys up here have to sell their wires at wholesale rates to little ISP's) My clients are all set to go and then Rogers reminds them they will lose their id. The thought of the change, just like the OP's reaction, is oh my .....

They then decide to abandon.

Caledon Ken said:

What I was pointing out, and I've had this repeatedly, a customer starts with an ISP, says Rogers Cable. They get an email address for free. Great. They use it for years as their primary sign in id on the web and give it to their friends, doctors, associations, monitoring companies, etc.

Then they get an offer to switch to say Bell Canada. ( The big guys up here have to sell their wires at wholesale rates to little ISP's) My clients are all set to go and then Rogers reminds them they will lose their id. The thought of the change, just like the OP's reaction, is oh my .....

They then decide to abandon.

Well that part is true - ISP's can't (won't) transfer email addresses.

This is why it's also a good idea to have a backup email address on accounts that allow such things such as your financial institutions.

Anyway I don't hop from ISP to ISP unless I'm forced by performance / service issues. Yeah, I know there's always the claim of the next big savings around the corner, but...

Caledon Ken said:

Agree @sygnus21

Exactly the same here. No one has to use but they sure like it when you do.

What I was pointing out, and I've had this repeatedly, a customer starts with an ISP, says Rogers Cable. They get an email address for free. Great. They use it for years as their primary sign in id on the web and give it to their friends, doctors, associations, monitoring companies, etc.

Then they get an offer to switch to say Bell Canada. ( The big guys up here have to sell their wires at wholesale rates to little ISP's) My clients are all set to go and then Rogers reminds them they will lose their id. The thought of the change, just like the OP's reaction, is oh my .....

They then decide to abandon.

I was with Cox for many years until the quality of service became so bad that I had to move to Verizon. Service outages became more frequent and third duration ranged from hours to days. Fortunately my Cox email addresses continued to operate for just over a year, giving me plenty of time to move everything to Gmail. The migration process was definitely daunting and I’ll never again tie my email to an ISP.

I don't change ISP's either but when we discuss price, every two years, I always point out how long I've been a customer and that I'm not on their email so the switch is just a modem away.

SoFine409 said:

I was with Cox for many years until the quality of service became so bad that I had to move to Verizon. Service outages became more frequent and third duration ranged from hours to days. Fortunately my Cox email addresses continued to operate for just over a year, giving me plenty of time to move everything to Gmail. The migration process was definitely daunting and I’ll never again tie my email to an ISP.

I don't care what the product or service someone is going to post a horror story so that's just par for internet forums.

That said, no service is perfect - and I've used both Verizon and Cox. I also worked in a Verizon home service call center so please don't act as though Verizon is without issue. The grass is always greener on the other side... until you find the other side isn't any greener than the side your were previously on

And for the record Cox does have it's outage issues.... just as Verizon, Comcast, Dish TV, etc....

sygnus21 said:

I don't care what the product or service someone is going to post a horror story so that's just par for internet forums.

That said, no service is perfect - and I've used both Verizon and Cox. I also worked in a Verizon home service call center so please don't act as though Verizon is without issue. The grass is always greener on the other side... until you find the other side isn't any greener than the side your were previously on

And for the record Cox does have it's outage issues.... just as Verizon, Comcast, Dish TV, etc....

I never said Verizon was perfect. My point was about how much time it took me to migrate my email addresses over from Cox to Gmail and how nice it was that Cox continued to keep my old email addresses alive for a year.

But now that you mention it, I do have far less trouble with Verizon than I had with Cox. Matter of fact it costs less and has better upload and download speeds. The Cox network here is significantly older than Verizon’s and apparently they’re having trouble keeping up with maintenance. At one point, my neighborhood was without service for a week and customer service kept customers different stories through out the process. That’s pretty miserable insofar as service is concerned.