Best Email Client for TDS Email and Everymail

The best email client for TDS email depends on whether you are keeping the address, because TDS stops providing email after October 31, 2026. Addresses survive only on Everymail, the service TDS arranged, at 3 dollars a month or 30 dollars a year, and every mail program has to be updated with a new password after the move. For one TDS address on a phone, use the phone's built in Mail app. On a Mac, use Apple Mail; on a PC, Thunderbird, which also keeps a local copy of your mail. For a TDS address alongside Gmail and work mail on more than one computer, pick a client that holds every mailbox in one list, so the Everymail password change is made once rather than on every device.

The short answer, by situation

Six situations cover almost everyone holding a tds.net, bendbroadband.com or other TDS address this autumn. The table is the recommendation. The rest of the article covers the dates, whether Everymail is worth paying for, the settings before and after the move, and what to check when a client stops connecting.

Is TDS email going away?

Yes. TDS is discontinuing the email service it provides to subscribers effective October 31, 2026, and says that after that date it will no longer provide or support TDS email accounts. A TDS spokesperson told local press the company is ending email to focus on its core products, since many customers already use other mail platforms. It affects every TDS provided domain, not only tds.net: TDS lists tdsmail.com, tdstelme.net, bendbroadband.com, bendcable.com, merged.bendcable.com, bajabb.com, beyondbb.com, chorus.com, crestviewcable.com, elknet.net, mcttelecom.com, merr.com, tellink.com and uslink.net as well.

TDS arranged for Everymail, a hosted mail service built on Open-Xchange, to take over the addresses of anyone who subscribes. These are the dates from the TDS email FAQ page.

Some early coverage quoted October 31 as the sign up deadline. The TDS page itself separates the two: September 30 to subscribe, October 31 for deletion. At the time of writing its Subscribe link was still live. If you are past September 30 and it still lets you through, take it the same day rather than waiting to find out whether it will later.

Is Everymail worth 3 dollars a month?

For most people with a TDS address that is more than a few years old, yes, at least for one year. The reason is not the mailbox itself. It is everything that points at it. An address that has been live since the dial up days is the login and recovery email for bank accounts, pharmacies, utilities, insurance portals and shopping sites that nobody remembers opening. Delete it and the next password reset for any of those goes nowhere.

The 30 dollar yearly plan buys twelve months in which those messages keep arriving while you move each account to a newer address at your own pace. That is cheaper than one hour lost locked out of a bank account. What Everymail gives you for it: the same address, your existing mail and contacts transferred by TDS, 20 GB of storage and no ads. What it does not give you is a way to read the TDS address in the same place as your other mailboxes. Everymail's webmail shows its own account, like every provider's webmail does.

If you have already moved everything to Gmail years ago and the TDS address only receives promotions, letting it lapse is reasonable. Copy anything you want off it first, because after October 31 nothing comes back. TDS states plainly that it is not liable for deleted mail after that date.

TDS email settings, before and after Everymail

Until your mailbox moves, the values are on TDS's own server settings page. They apply to every TDS domain.

Everymail does not print its server names in a public help article. Its support page tells you to sign in to webmail, open the gear icon and choose Connect your device, which then gives step by step instructions for Windows, macOS, iPhone and Android. Neither TDS nor Everymail uses app passwords, which puts TDS in a much simpler position than Yahoo, AOL or Gmail: the ordinary email password is what every client takes.

One warning if you have read TDS mail by POP on an old PC. TDS notes that once a POP client downloads a message, TDS no longer keeps a copy on the server. What gets transferred to Everymail is what is on the server, so years of mail may exist only on that PC. Check it before the machine goes to a recycler.

Why is my TDS email not working in Outlook after the move?

Almost always it is the password. TDS says you will be asked to set a new password shortly after the mailbox transfers to Everymail. Every program that saved the old one, Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird and the Mail app on each phone and tablet, then fails to sign in and asks for a password again, or shows a vague connection error. Enter the new password in each one.

If a client still fails with the right password, delete the account from that client and add it again with the values Everymail's Connect your device wizard gives for that device. An old profile can hold server details that editing the password field will never fix. Before you do that, sign in at tds.everymail.com in a browser. If the website works and the client does not, the fault is in the client.

This is also the moment to look for fakes. TDS sends its migration notices from [email protected], and Everymail uses [email protected] for account mail and [email protected] or [email protected] for transition news. A message from anywhere else asking you to confirm your TDS password is phishing, and an old ISP address mid migration is exactly what scammers aim at.

Save what matters before October 31

Whether or not you subscribe, spend twenty minutes copying the important things off the TDS mailbox now. Set it up in Thunderbird or Apple Mail over IMAP, let every folder finish downloading, and back up that program's data folder. Webmail on its own leaves you no copy.

Look in particular for the attachments that are hard to get again: tax documents, insurance declarations, receipts for large purchases, and bank or brokerage statements that were emailed as PDFs over the years. If you keep household or small business books, save the statements somewhere permanent and, if your bookkeeping software wants them as data rather than documents, turn those PDF statements into OFX files your accounting software imports while you still have them all in one place. Then write down every site that uses the TDS address as its login, starting with banks, and change them over one at a time.

Apple Mail, Thunderbird, Outlook and eM Client, compared for TDS

Apple Mail is the right default for one TDS address on a Mac. Add it as an IMAP account with the full address and password; after the Everymail move, update the password in System Settings under Internet Accounts. All Inboxes merges it with anything else on that Mac, and it keeps a local copy of what it downloads.

Thunderbird is the right default on a PC or Linux machine, and the best tool for the backup job. Use manual configuration with mail.tds.net now, then the Everymail values later. Unified Folders merges several accounts, and it has no license fee.

Classic Outlook makes sense if you already pay for Microsoft 365. Add the TDS address as an IMAP account manually rather than trusting auto setup, and expect to re-enter the password after the move. It works, but it is heavy for one old address.

eM Client is the polished paid desktop option for Windows and macOS, at 59.95 dollars once for one device or 39.95 dollars a year on its US pricing page. It merges accounts well and has a calendar. Like the others, it is configured per computer, so a household with a desktop and two laptops updates the Everymail password three times.

Phone Mail apps on iPhone and Android handle a TDS or Everymail address over IMAP perfectly well. The catch is the same: each device stores its own copy of the password, and each has to be fixed after the move.

When a browser based client is the better buy

The TDS change hurts most for people with the address spread across several devices and several other mailboxes: a Gmail account, a work address, maybe an old AOL or Yahoo one. Every one of those clients has to be touched after Everymail resets the password, and once that is done, the TDS mail still lives in its own corner, checked less and less, until the one message that mattered is missed.

Inboxes connects each mailbox once, on our side, and opens the same board on any computer in a browser. The TDS address is added with its full address and password, today on mail.tds.net and after the move with the Everymail values, and when the password changes you update it in one place. Gmail, Yahoo and AOL join with an app password, your own domain with its normal login, and every message gets a category and a spam verdict as it arrives. That is what makes a wind down work: the bank notice or password reset that still goes to the old address sits in the same list as everything else, marked Important, on the day it arrives. It is the same reason Gmail's own route for pulling in other addresses is a poor bet, since Google removes checking mail from other accounts in January 2027.

Plans start at 29 dollars a month flat for five mailboxes. It will not read an outlook.com or Microsoft 365 work address, because we do not use OAuth, it has no calendar, and it is not a backup tool, so the Thunderbird step above still stands. If one TDS address on one computer is the whole story, Apple Mail or Thunderbird is the better fit and costs nothing.

The recommendation, in one line each

Keeping the address: subscribe to Everymail, and take the 30 dollar yearly plan if you plan to wind it down.

Not keeping it: download everything to Thunderbird or Apple Mail before October 31, then move every login.

One TDS address, one Mac: Apple Mail. One PC or Linux machine: Thunderbird.

Already paying for Microsoft 365: classic Outlook with manual IMAP setup.

TDS plus Gmail plus work, on more than one machine: a browser based client that reads each mailbox where it lives, so the Everymail password is changed once. The dates, the settings table and the keep or move comparison are all on our page about the TDS email app and TDS email settings, other ISPs that have shrunk or ended email are covered in the best email client for Windstream email and for Optimum email, and you can add your TDS address now.