I followed each step above carefully, but on step 3 you say to rename the file and type in "AOLDesktopData1" but it will not allow a name change because "a file is open or in use". I closed AOL and started over again. No help. I did not uninstall AOL Gold because I could not complete this step. Uninstalling AOL Gold and re-installing it is a big hassle and according to others, it does not help. I have 25 favorite sites up top and have to replace all of them. And don't want to lose all My Favorites! Great frustration...

Agreed. When the "new" e-mail system started a few weeks ago everything went to ****.
Slow loading and "not responding" message when going to old mail or sent mail. I have been with AOL for over 20 years. This situation happened a few years ago and it was finally fixed. At that time, I was told that AOL mail is handled by a 3rd party.

Appreciate the suggestion to uninstall and reinstall the desktop but I have done that several times and it does not work

What is going on with AOL.. IT sucks now.. We are paying 29.99 a month for your service and it constantly freezes it takes forever to look at old mail fix this **** and be done with it already!!!

URGENT: This happened to my neighbor yesterday and it also just happened to me when I tried to sign on: I clicked on the AOL icon on desktop and the wheel kept spinning during which time everything was dead. We were unable to open any other icons and we were unable to bring up task manager or shut down. Had to press the computer off button to shut down. I must add that a similar thing happens to me all day long while trying to access sites on AOL. The wheel keeps spinning and if I click on anything during this time the screen freezes and gets a white haze over it. It takes a log time to unfreeze. AOL is getting dangerously bad. I am beyond disappointed and disgusted that a once great program now has so many problems.

ITS JUST AMAZING HOW THE ADS CAN LOAD WITH NO DIFFICULTY FREQUENTLY CHANGING BUT WE WAIT AND WAIT AND WAIT EVEN MORE FOR MAIL TO LOAD UP, AND WHEN IT DOES THE ENTIRE PROGRAM FREEZES UP. . HOW ABOUT REFUNDING A MILLION DOLLARS AOL BECAUSE YOUR PROGRAM HAS BECOME UNSTABLE AND UNUSABLE. WE WERE PROMISED NEW AND IMPROVED. THIS IS WORSE THAN WHEN IT WAS DIAL UP.

EVERYTIME AOL DOES AN UPDATE, A FIX OR AN IMPROVEMENT, OUR SERVICE CEASES TO EXIST OR BECOMES SO BAD ITS NOT WORTH THE AGGRAVATION TO EVEN USE IT. I'M SICK OF THIS **** WITH AOL.

I'm having the same issue, aol is freezing when its trying to load, having to use task manager to get out of the program all together. I'm sick to death of this **** happening over and over when aol decides to 'improve' things and it only ends up making it far worse and frustrating, but you can bet your *** they take your money.

Takes over 15 minutes for messages to load. Ouch.

we should all get together and stop paying for a service that SUCKS. Aside from all the "ADS" one has to deal with inferior service. Good riddance.!Oh another thing.........Engineer's. (hahahhaha) Yeah Right!

AOL. Is ridiculous. I too am paying not $3.99 a month but $4.99 a month and the service totally sucks, This will be the last year I use AOL. Starting in January I will be using another browser as ALL my computer techs advise me to do. Never met a computer Tech that loved or even liked AOL. That should tell you something, Farewell AOL 2020

AOL Tech Support is outsourced to several countries: Mexico, India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Romania. Most of the Tech Support people in these countries are near unintelligible. The Romanian people speak the best English of the very worst of the bunch. I have been disconnected many, many times after explaining the problem, at length, with no mechanism in place for the Techs to call me back. This is all BEYOND FRUSTRATING. I spent over 3 hours on the phone and Bamgar session to reload AOL Gold, twice, and troubleshoot the problems, only to be disconnected back to a dial tone after being placed on hold for 15 another minutes. If I ran my company that way, I be out of a job, and deservedly so. As of today, AOL Gold mail lockup and freezing the entire program still a problem, basically nothing resolved. But, the Tech did try to sell me the AOL "System Mechanic" and "Malware System" for $15 and $20 a month respectively. How nice. Does any of this sound familiar to any other paying customers who are not only NOT getting what they pay for, but, further, receive NO monthly subscription fee adjustment? It's no wonder AOL,Verizon and Ocwin have several class-action lawsuits underway. At least the old AOL 9.8 program mostly ran pretty good. The AOL Gold revision 11.0.2280 is rife with problems and inherent glitches.

When is the Freezing desktop going to stop? I cannot access my OLD MAIL. Also, now flagged messages are lumped in with NEW MAIL. This is awful.

Same problem here and a fairly recent phenomenon. I initially thought that it might be an issue with my aging computer. But I am experiencing the same thing with my fairly new Surface Go (Win10 and extra RAM to support it). I get around it by using a browser to get into my AOL mail. Much faster but then I get AOL emails expressing alarm (security) over the fact that I'm using a "third party" to access AOL. Task Manager tells me that AOL is responsible for most of the 100% usage of my CPU.

I have contacted AOL so many times and still no resolution and I am a paying customer as well. Go a tech on remotely and he installed newest Desktop gold software and it's worse now than it was before. AOL GET YOU ACT TOGETHER AND START HELPING YOU PAYING CUSTOMERS!!!!!!

This AOL GOLD is an inferior program....Freezing up my computer 4-5 times a day............Not acceptable........Please get some competent techs on the matter !!

Well Said! Dial up was faster back in the day!

why am i paying for this im going to despute my current aol charges cant get mail or favorites

AOL Gold Email tabs freeze and lockup mailbox program, Won't let me shutdown AOL program, Won't let me select: sign-on at program startup, won't let me disable search window, won't let me disable sounds or change mail settings. On installing newest AOL Gold 11.0.2844 to try and correct this, I lost all my 15 installed Tool-Bar settings and Favorite Places bookmarks. Additionally, everything runs slower in general than my old AOL Gold program. I've never seen an email program or online program so problematic and wishy-washy, unreliable. I would be embarrassed to sell a product like that.

AOL claims the problems below are fixed. They are not fixed on my AOL Gold program 11.0.2844.

HOT Fixed! - slow loading/switching mailbox folders HOT Fixed! - in some cases crash changing mail folders HOT Fixed! - in some cases crash going to mail, specific folders HOT Fixed! - in some cases slowness opening/switching mail folders.

Also, the AOL "Gold Team" is NOT available 24/7 as they claim, but only 8a to 7p EST. They should correct this too.

"HOT Fixed! - slow loading/switching mailbox folders" fixed nothing and caused more issues. I was really excited to read that you were _finally_ addressing this problem. If anything the folders are even slower loading after this update. Also the Quick Find feature is now mostly broken. Works sometimes, not others. I need fast loading folders to sift through work-related emails. Why is email functionality not a priority with your team? I'm sure there's a lot of users who like the desktop software for work-related emails. I don't like AOL webmail. Please improve the desktop software email.