accessing my email abroad

Quasar

I will shortly travel abroad (Europe) and will need to access, as a test, my new outlook and gmail addresses. I will be on a different computer, one that is already there. I would wish to keep these addresses when I finally move over there.

Will it be possible, or will outlook/email security lock me out? I have not put any phone number in my email profiles when I created them. They work fine here in te UK, but I need to be able to access them abroad.

Any reassurance and/or advice?

Neil_Jones

IF you regularly log in on a UK IP address then if a log in is detected from another range in an entirely different country then yes it will probably flag it up.

Add a mobile number and a backup email address if nothing else and make sure these work and are accessible. If you use an email client (Outlook or Thunderbird) on a laptop and you're taking that with you it should be okay but it sounds like you intend to use webmail.

If worse comes to the worse you may be able to use a VPN or something like BitTorrent to paint the impression that you're in the UK.

Quasar

Neil_Jones wrote: »

IF you regularly log in on a UK IP address then if a log in is detected from another range in an entirely different country then yes it will probably flag it up.

Add a mobile number and a backup email address if nothing else and make sure these work and are accessible. If you use an email client (Outlook or Thunderbird) on a laptop and you're taking that with you it should be okay but it sounds like you intend to use webmail.

If worse comes to the worse you may be able to use a VPN or something like BitTorrent to paint the impression that you're in the UK.

Thanks for your reply.

The last paragraph is a tad too technical for me.

I'm actually moving permanently abroad in a few months, and these emails would support some sites here I want to access. The mobile number I have at present would not be good as I will be getting one in that country so I cannot do anything until I actually access the email addresses from there and I will have a different computer at some point anyway. Oh well ...

RuuElisa

Having a phone number on my account worked against me for gmail as the moment I could no longer access the phone number, and was on a new laptop, gmail decided I couldn't prove the account was mine! I lost access permanently and there is no recourse, they have no method for you to contact customer service and have it reinstated in any way. Even though I can access the backup email address and retrieve the security codes - I still cannot get into that second account, ever, due to the fact that I set up two-factor authentication and for no other reason. It's a safety system which has decided I am a hacker and not the owner.

I would turn off the two-factor authentication just during your move/visit, or if you must use it, make it a trusted friend's phone number over here who can send on any passcodes to you.

Tom99

Just as a back-up could you set up your gmail account to forward all emails to another email address?

Quasar

Tom99 wrote: »

Just as a back-up could you set up your gmail account to forward all emails to another email address?

Yes I can and I will, but the issue is not accessing emails as such, but access to UK sites, especially HMRC, as I have been informed by them that after April I will still need to submit my last tax return. I cannot change the email on the site until I am over there, and to do so I need to access the UK mail in the first place.

Roger1

Quasar, this is a partial response to your query.

I travel regularly - in the past couple of years to EU countries, Switzerland, USA and South Africa - and am generally able to pick up e-mail and use UK websites.

For e-mail, I use the Thunderbird Mail reader from Mozilla. This is using my own domain (xxx@domain.xxx). Sorry, I have no experience using G-Mail. In view of your future movements, it may be worthwhile to look into this.

Websites can detect when you are outside your normal area. Many, such as MSE, seem have no problem. Others such as banks and airlines may do. For these, I now use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) which allows me to mask my location and act as though I am in the UK. It also claims to add increased security. The VPN I use is F-Secure.

Good luck.

AndyPix

It will work fine - don't worry


Google are aware that people travel

Heedtheadvice

As Andy says it should work fine.


Just in case if you want to have a backup in place I use mailfence (normally in uk but currently not!) No issue, no problems with hmrc, based in the EU (Belgium), web based (usual access via browser but like most app client options) secure, data not shared or scanned (unlike gmail), not had any spam issue.......gmail can be a secondary service etc.......oh and a free version!

jackieblack

I was in the USA last month and, for the first time ever, after sending my first email from USA hotmail locked me out of one (only one!) of my accounts ‘due to suspicious activity’.
I was expecting a major headache to get it sorted out but just had to log into my account and confirm that the event was genuine and it unlocked the account. No big deal in the end.