Every mail application — Outlook, Apple Mail, Gmail, Thunderbird, your phone’s built-in app — asks for the same handful of settings. Once you understand what they are, setup takes two minutes on any device.
What you need before you start
- Your full email address
- Your mailbox password
- The incoming server name (IMAP or POP3) and port
- The outgoing server name (SMTP) and port
- Confirmation that encryption (SSL/TLS) should be enabled — it should
Where to find your settings
Your exact server names and ports are in your welcome email and available from our support team. They vary depending on which mail platform your account sits on, so please use the values we supplied rather than guessing at a standard format.
IMAP or POP3?
Choose IMAP unless you have a specific reason not to.
| IMAP (recommended) | POP3 | |
|---|---|---|
| Where mail lives | On the server | Downloaded to one device |
| Multiple devices | All stay in sync | Messy — mail lands on whichever device checks first |
| Read/unread status | Syncs everywhere | Per device only |
| Folders | Shared across devices | Local to one device |
| If a device is lost | Nothing lost | Mail on that device is gone |
| Server storage used | More | Less |
POP3 made sense when storage was expensive and people had a single computer. Today it causes more problems than it solves.
What each setting does
- Incoming server — where your device collects mail from.
- Outgoing server (SMTP) — where your device sends mail through. Almost every “can receive but can’t send” problem lives here.
- Port — the numbered channel used. Secure ports are typically 993 (IMAP), 995 (POP3) and 465 or 587 (SMTP).
- Encryption — SSL/TLS protects your password and messages in transit. Always on, without exception.
- Username — usually your full email address, including the part after the @.
- Outgoing authentication — must be enabled, using the same username and password as incoming. This is the single most commonly missed setting.
Adding the account
- Open your mail application and choose to add an account. The wording varies: “Add account”, “New account” or a plus icon.
- Choose manual setup. Automatic detection frequently guesses wrongly for custom domains and leaves you with a half-working account. Look for “Other”, “Manual setup” or “IMAP”.
- Enter your name and email address. Your name is what recipients see.
- Enter the incoming server details. Server name, port and encryption exactly as supplied.
- Enter the outgoing server details. Then find the authentication setting and enable it.
- Enter your password and complete the setup.
- Test both directions. Send yourself a message from another address, then reply to it. Only when both work is the account genuinely set up.
Common problems
| Symptom | Usual cause |
|---|---|
| Can receive but not send | Outgoing authentication is off, or the wrong SMTP port |
| Password rejected repeatedly | Caps lock, a trailing space from copy-paste, or the username needs the full address |
| Certificate warning | Server name typed slightly wrong, or encryption set to the wrong type |
| Mail appears on phone but not laptop | One device is using POP3 and removing mail from the server |
| Nothing arrives at all | Wrong incoming server, or a firewall blocking the port |
If you’re stuck, contact our support team — we can walk you through it on the phone.