General guide on setting up your Email on your device
Setting up emails on email client apps appears to be the biggest cause of support calls for hosting companies.
Setting up your email on your chosen email client application should be the simplest part of managing a hosting account, however, the lack of understanding of terminologies are the biggest cause of issues for users.
So here we aim to demystify the terminologies and help you set up your email clients easily.
What is Email Client Application?
These are applications on your devices that allow you to collect and send emails. Examples include MS Outlook, Thunderbird, BlueMail, Apple Mail, and myriads of others.
In order to set up your email account (or accounts if you have multiple accounts), you need to understand what elements your email client needs.
The problem is that every application has a different order of setting up, some use defaults that may be unsuitable for your email account, as well as some that use different terminologies!
This is why you find it easier if you understood how things work, so that you can get around the idiosyncrasies of different applications.
What are Email Account “Types”?
There are 2 types of email accounts you can set up in your Email Client Application.
- PoP 3 – With this type of account set up, your email client application downloads and stores all the emails you receive and sends emails directly from your device. You can select “Leave a Copy on the server”, but this will only apply to incoming. There is no record of your “sent” emails on the server.
- IMAP – When using this type of account, your devices synchronises all incoming, outgoing, junk, and any folder you have set up within your device. This means all emails are kept on the server. This is recommended specially when you are using multiple devices, or multiple people that access the account, as all devices can see activities.
What are Emails Servers?
Email service providers store your emails on specific server, and have different email server names for incoming and outgoing emails.
Your email provider will supply you with their email server names for both incoming and outgoing servers.
- Incoming email server – This handles your incoming emails, manages your junk mail, and stores your emails. You must obtain this from your email service provider and not assume your email client application defaults are the correct ones.
- Outgoing email server – This handles your sent emails, and manages your credentials that reduce the chances of your outgoing emails being rejected or marked as spam by the recipient’s email server. You must obtain this from your email service provider and not assume your email client application defaults are the correct ones.
What are email credentials?
To access the server to collect or send emails, your servers require credentials. These are unique to each email account and you must record these in a safe place. These include:
- Username – This is always your email address
- Password – This is provided by your service provider, but usually you can change these at will, as long as you know the current password.
What is SSL/TSL?
These are encryption methods that allows your email client to connect and communicate to the email server securely using encryption.
Check with your service provider if they offer this service, and whether you need to use different email server addresses to connect with SSL/TSL.
Do not assume you can connect this way, just because your email client application recommends it.
What are Ports?
Ports are used in all Internet communications to distinguish specific type of connection and usage. This means you must use the correct ports to connect to your email servers.
IMAP uses different ports to POP3 accounts, and you need to use different ports depending on whether you are using SSL/TSL or unencrypted transmission.
Check this information with your email service provider but the common ports for emails server are:
- POP3 Unencrypted: Incoming = 110, Outgoing = 587 or 25 (many internet providers block 25 so beware and use 587 if your email provider allows it).
- POP3 Encrypted (SSL/TSL): Incoming = 995, Outgoing = 587
- IMAP Unencrypted: Incoming = 143, Outgoing = 587
- IMAP Encrypted (SSL/TSL): incoming = 993, Outgoing = 465
- Passwords may require to be sent Encrypted or Unencrypted (Plain), so check with your provider.
- Always check with your service provider before setting up ports and authentication to ensure you have the correct ports, otherwise your email connection will be rejected.
What do I need to set up my email client?
Now that you know what each terminology means, you can understand what and why you need the following information from your email server provider.
In addition to your email account credentials, you need the following:
Incoming Server:
-
- Name – For POP or IMAP
- SSL/TSL – On or Off
- Server Port – For POP or IMAP
- Authentication – Plain or Encrypted
Outgoing Server
-
- Name – For POP or IMAP
- SSL/TSL – On or Off
- Server Port – For POP or IMAP
- Authentication – Plain or Encrypted
Summary
Setting up your account on your email client application should be an easy process if you have all the information, and understand the reasons you need them. Good luck and contact your email provider if you do not have all the information you need, or have problems setting up.
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