Leaving job, work email registered on everything

[Bleepbleepbleepman]

Any tips??! Please
I’m likely leaving my longstanding job for a new one in the next few weeks
Historically (and stupidly) I’ve registered literally everything I’ve signed up for to my work email and phone number so I have easy access on my laptop and phone.
has anyone been in a similar situation and managed to navigate changing this smoothly?

you are being unreasonable - you’ve got a nightmare ahead sorting this

you are not being unreasonable - there’s a way to sort this

Most public sector organisations would not allow this situation. I doubt you will be able to keep your phone number either. Sorry - but you’ve got a lot of life admin to sort before you leave!

Can I suggest that while you’re updating your email address/ mobile number you add a couple of yubikeys into the mix? It’s a usb key hard second factor that will mean you won’t be so reliant on sms/email codes. You have to make the changes anyhow, may as well beef up the security on your accounts and make life easier for you in future.
Set up 2 yubikeys, you can get them from amazon.

It’s almost certainly a breach of your work policies to use a work device for personal purposes so I would put in the time to change everything over before you leave and they find out.

I wouldn’t let work know and I wouldn’t do it again, it’s often in your work contract that the email address is technically property of the employer and you sort of just borrow it

In terms of essentials that you need to ensure you don't miss, I'd suggest:

1. Security back up email address/number for your personal email (e.g. hotmail/gmail), as they'll be impossible to access if you forget your password

2. Social media accounts (ditto)

3. Banking

4. Nectar/clubcard/etc

I have known people be able to keep their mobile number (not phone), by porting the number across.

Put an out of office showing your new email.

You can possibly keep the phone number if you ask your employer. They can still keep the phone and contract it would just be the number that would change but it does depend on your job, if it's the kind of job where you could poach clients from them for example (because the client already has your number and may not realise you've moved on) they may want to protect themselves and say no.
I wouldn't highlight that you use their email domain for all your personal accounts though, not without checking what their IT/cyber security policy is as it may land you in hot water with management if it's seen as a breach. Some companies have policies in place for this and some don't.

Yes this was me, I could have taken my phone number but decided when I first started thinking about leaving to get my own phone as part of the disengagement process (I will never go back to sharing a home and work phone it’s so much easier to disconnect for the weekend by leaving work phone in my work bag).

I then just set up a google account and updated all the key ones (bank, bills, online shopping etc) and then anything I missed (lots!) I was disciplined that whatever personal stuff came into my work email I would either update with the new address or unsubscribe. It’s not been too bad and I am 2 months into my new job and haven’t come across anything that I couldn’t access yet.

To be honest getting paid on a different day of the month means I’ve had to change all my DD’s and I have found that much more stressful.

good luck with disconnecting and getting a new job.

Can you just go through old emails to pick out what the sitss are? You'll need to tidy up your email box anyway before you go.

That will only work 1. If it's a human who has sent the email. This will not be the case in 100's if situations and 2. The out of office will only work for the short period before they deactivate her account.

This will in no way solve the op's problem.

Do not do this!

im having to do this at moment as the email provider I’ve used for years is closing down. It is, I’ll not lie, a pain in the neck. I’m using it as an opportunity to clean up my online accounts, use password manager properly, get rid of stuff that I no longer need. I don’t think there’s an easy way other than one by one.

did take a bit of time to go back through emails to catch some unusual stuff, like a trust I’m part of that emails me annually for tax details….

some sites won’t let you change emails….b&q for one and you have to start again.

i know some people hate it but this is one of those situations when I would get ChatGPT to do some of my thinking for me. If you tell it what you have done and ask it to suggest a list of the most important websites to review (make sure you tell it you are in the UK), it will probably help gather your thoughts. Just ask it what scenarios it can foresee when you lose access to your email and phone number and what proactive steps you could take now. If you’re intending to get a personal mobile phone contract, doing it now, while you are still able to change your phone number on sites, will make life easier.

Your work email will be deactivated likely on the day you leave. Responses to it probably won’t even bounce.
This can’t be fixed with an out of office reply.

My DH was allowed to keep his number (but not the phone itself).

If you use google it typically saves all your logins and passwords, can’t remember off the top of my head how to find it. Best is to use ChatGPT for step by step instructions how to find!

OP - It’s really important that you setup a personal email like gmail etc. Your work email is not personal it can be easily accessed by numerous IT staff at your place of work or any IT staff they outsource IT support / email administration to. Passwords and links can be intercepted and you would not be covered if any fraud took place as other people have access to your emails. For example if you received a “magic link” for banking to log in. Move everything over, delete the personal emails and unsubscribe from them.

At my place of work it would be a disciplinary offence to have done this. It would be pointless though as all the links would be blocked when you click on them due to their social media/website policies.

Yes I did this after I left a job, it was actually really easy to do they just gave me a code and it was really simple and no hassle at all.

When you set up your new email account set up several - have one for the most important financial stuff - one for utilities - one for health stuff - one for shopping - and a junk one for when you have to give an email but don’t want to get emails.

(you can just use Apples - hide me email feature too)

You can do this all in one umbrella account as different aliases or as separate actual accounts.

sorry if this has already been mentioned

Quite possibly one of the dumbest things anyone has ever done but also easily fixable thankfully.

You just need to go through every account and change the contact details.

On your laptop, if you open your browser and go to settings, you can view what sites have saved passwords and what the username/password is. If yours is like mine there will be loads of sites, that I've had to register for to make a purchase (and so they can bombard me with spam) and will never need again, if you do just re-register with your new address.

On a scale of - tying helium balloons to a deck chair and floating off over an ocean - using the wrong email address, it doesn't seem that daft? Or the person who wanted to live with bears? Spoiler, the bears had other plans...

I agree with that. My workwould absolutely not be happy with this. Lots of websites have data breaches and if you also use passwords interchangeably it's quite a risk. Plus I bet you there is somewhere written you shouldn't do that.
Quietly change everything asap

This is specifically forbidden where I work and many popular internet sites are blocked so we can't access them from our work computers anyway ( Amazon, FB, ebay, banks).
Tbh I am surprised this has gone unnoticed for so long. I have access to all 15 of my team's inboxes when they are out of office so I can check for important incoming email traffic. And IT can obviously access too so personal use would be picked up pretty quickly.
Not to mention the sheer volume. I get 60-80 work emails per day. If you added private stuff to the mix I would spend all day just managing my inbox !
Plus it must be a huge security issue due to all the recent breaches. When M&S and LNER were hacked recently I noticed a real increase in spam from overseas in my personal inbox. Would have been a real issue if that had all come to my work email address.

But doesn't this mean you have your bank (and every one company from Nectar to your water bill...) sending personal emails with personal stuff to your work email account...that your work may have access to after you leave? You need to scrub anything personal, IE all history of personal stuff, from your work email account too.