Comment by paxys
15 hours ago
> Going and updating my accounts with a new address was easier than I was expecting
Is this really true? Out of the probably many hundreds of online accounts I use I can think of very few that actually let you change the underlying email (which in almost ever case is the username) without having to create a brand new account.
When I made the switch from @Gmail to my own email domains hosted by Fastmail, I never had any problem changing the email on my 100+ accounts with various services.
That was about five years ago, I imagine it might have been more difficult in the past, say 10+ years ago.
Can you cite an example of a big, well-known, etc service that enforces a 'you can't change your email address' rule? I haven't really seen this sort of thing in the wild to be honest. Maybe one or two over 20+ years? I think the norm is using a username or an internal identification number (such as an UUID). It is rare the email address is actually used as the primary key to identify an account.
> Can you cite an example of a big, well-known, etc service that enforces a 'you can't change your email address' rule?
Philips Hue.
I've run into others, but that one sticks out because it's the only account I still have using my old email, since creating a new account would also involve re-pairing all of my Hue products.
https://www.coles.com.au/ (the 2nd largest supermarket chain in Australia) and https://makerworld.com/ are two I've come across.
McDonald's. I wish I was kidding. https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/faq/can-i-change-the-emai...
My hospital.
Yeah, and they insist on using it for MFA.
Actually the tech support did change what I use to sign in, but the patient record/profile is separate, and not user-serviceable.
I tried twice to change it, but they were able to send me on epic bureaucratic fools errands; I had to give up!
Most of the sites I have accounts on did let me change my email. Looking at my password manager, about 1/5 of those that use email for login don't use my current email.
I wouldn't say it is easier than expected though, logging in, changing your email, confirming the change, and then making sure the password manager was updated was a bit of work.
I was able to change it on every single service I use except for a well known Canadian pizza chain.
Oh yeah. I did this in 2021. I got the list out of 1Pass and just did them in small batches. I hit a few that wouldn’t let you change but nothing important.
I had all the important stuff done in a week.
I didn't keep exact numbers, but of the ~400 Hide My Email aliases I have, probably 85% of them allowed changing email in the online self-serve, 10% required contacting customer support, and maybe 5% needed a new account.
The majority of mine are changeable, but the process is typically convoluted. The two that I have run into so far that I can't change are OpenRouter and Ecobee.