Virgin Media is shutting down its own email service and handing over management of remaining accounts to Junara, part of Australian firm Atmail. Customers will get a 45-day window to either sign up with Junara, export their data and switch to another provider, or close their account altogether, marking the end of an era for millions of legacy email addresses tied to the broadband provider.

The change affects anyone with a Virgin Media-issued address, including ntlworld, blueyonder, virgin.net and virginmedia.com accounts. Moving to Junara will mean signing up for a paid service, though the first year is free; Virgin had already stopped issuing new email addresses back in 2022 as customers increasingly favoured providers like Gmail and Outlook. Virgin Media O2 COO Alan Stott said the move lets the company focus investment on broadband, mobile, landline and TV services, but the decision leaves many of Virgin's roughly 5.4 million fixed-line broadband customers needing to act quickly.