Q Following a series of abusive emails I wish to change my email address so I receive nothing more from this individual. How do I do this and make sure the old address is stopped?
N Derby

A Rather than changing email addresses, you can block emails from specific people. This saves the hassle involved in telling your friends your new address and updating mailing lists. ISPs rarely change addresses because of abuse.

In Outlook Express, click on one of the offending emails, then on the Message menu and then on Block Sender. Outlook Express will ask whether you would like to remove all the messages from this email address from the inbox. Click on Yes and emails from this address will automatically be deleted.

To achieve the same effect in Mozilla Thunderbird, click on the Tools menu and select Message Filter. Click on the New button and give a name to the filter. Select the ‘Match all of the following’ option at the top. In the top box change the left option to From, the middle option to Is and enter the email address to be blocked in the right-hand box. In the lower box change the right-hand option to Deleted. Click on OK to save the changes.

Webmail accounts including Yahoo and Googlemail can also block email addresses. If you use Yahoo Mail, left-click on the Options link to the right of the window. Left-click on the Block Addresses link. Type the address you wish to block and then click on Add Block. Adding the part of the email address after the @ symbol will block all the emails from that part of the internet (called a domain).