Thanks for your response. It's my brother that has the problem but I thought I'd help him out by accessing the mental might of the forum! He has been using the freeserve address for many years (after assurances by Orange that he could continue to use it with no problem) and all's been fine up until last week when he lost all e-mails. He contacted Orange help (in India I believe!) who said there was a server problem they were working on and to give it "a couple of days". Two days later got the same response, then was told "the account has been eliminated, it's gone". All his business contacts from years past and his web site used that freeserve address so it's pretty devestating for him. I suppose I had a forlorn hope that eliminated stuff was still there somewhere and could be retrieved by some means or other. Looks like he's screwed thugh, eh?