Checked 26 October 2026

Virgin Media email is moving to Junara: what to do

If your email address ends in @ntlworld.com, @blueyonder.co.uk, @virgin.net or @virginmedia.com, Virgin Media is handing your mailbox over to Junara, an email company owned by Atmail. You have to choose what happens to it, and if you do nothing, it is eventually deleted.

Below: the deadlines, what it costs, your three options and what to save first, all from Virgin Media's own announcement and help pages. If you would rather not deal with it yourself, I can do it with you over a screen share: £40 an hour, the first 15 minutes free.

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Who is affected

Anyone with a Virgin Media email address on one of these domains. Virgin Media stopped giving out new addresses in 2022, so this is about addresses people have had for years.

@ntlworld.com
@blueyonder.co.uk
@virgin.net
@virginmedia.com

The deadlines

Virgin Media is contacting people in phases, starting in September 2026, and the date that applies to you is in the emails it sends you.

You get at least 45 days from the first email to decide.
Miss that date and the mailbox is suspended. You then have an extra 120 days to sign up with Junara and get it back.
After that the mailbox and everything in it is deleted, and Virgin Media says a deleted mailbox cannot be recovered.
Nothing from Virgin Media yet? Check your junk folder: Virgin Media warns that its emails about the account can end up there.

Your three options

Virgin Media gives three choices, and doing nothing ends in the third one, just later.

Keep the address: sign up with Junara and your mailbox moves across with it, which Virgin Media says usually takes a few minutes. Each address is billed separately.
Move to another provider: save what you need, start using a new address and change it everywhere the old one is used. Only Junara keeps the old address.
Let it close: save anything you want to keep first, because the contents are deleted.

What it costs

Junara is a paid service, and its monthly and annual prices are shown when you sign up. Virgin Media O2 has announced these terms:

Current Virgin Media broadband, landline or TV customers: the first 12 months free, with a 99p transfer fee paid to Junara.
Customers who have told Virgin Media they need extra support: the first 18 months free.
Former customers with no Virgin Media service: a standard paid Junara plan.
Moving your emails to a free email provider costs nothing except the time it takes.

Before you decide: save what matters

Whichever way you go, these come first:

Make a list of everything that uses this address: banking, your GP, energy and water, shops, subscriptions, apps and devices. If you leave Virgin Media email, each one needs the new address before the old one stops working.
If you sign in to your Virgin Media account with this email address, change your Virgin Media O2 ID in My Virgin Media, under Account settings, Identity & security settings.
Save the emails and attachments you need. A few can be forwarded to your new address; a whole mailbox is better copied with an email program on your computer.
To connect an email program, Virgin Media's settings are: IMAP server imap.virginmedia.com, port 993, SSL on, your full email address as the username, and a Virgin Media Mail app password, which you create in the My Virgin Media app.
Save your contacts as well as your emails.

Watch out for scams

A deadline and the fear of losing years of email are exactly what scammers play on.

Virgin Media's emails about this change contain no sign-up links and do not ask for personal or payment details.
Do not pay for anything over the phone or through a link in an email. To sign up with Junara, type junara.com into your browser yourself.
Not sure a message is genuine? Go to virginmedia.com yourself and open the help section.
Virgin Media's help line is 0345 454 1111, or 150 from a Virgin Media landline.

If you would rather not do it yourself

I can do it with you over a screen share, wherever you are in the UK. You see everything on your screen, and nothing is signed up for or paid without you.

Signing you up with Junara and checking that your mail, folders and contacts arrived
Or copying every email and folder to a new provider, such as Gmail or Outlook.com, and setting the new address up on your phone, tablet and computer
Going through the list of accounts that use the old address and changing them with you
£40 an hour, the first 15 minutes free, and no fix, no fee. In English, Russian or Ukrainian.

Sources

Everything above comes from Virgin Media and Virgin Media O2, checked on 26 October 2026. If anything has changed since, Virgin Media's help page is the one to trust.