How to set up your emails.

Setting up your emails can be a pain. There’s a lot of technical jargon to contend with and a fair amount of information required. The information needed can change from provider to provider, only furthering the confusion. 

Firstly, let’s explain some terminology used when communicating about email settings. 

Your account type will be either: 

IMAP: Internet Messaging Access Protocol. This standard describes a protocol to retrieve mail from an IMAP server. IMAP allows email applications to access new messages and folders from the server. Multiple email programs connected via IMAP can sync their actions. 

OR

POP: Post Office Protocol, which provides access to an inbox stored in an email server. For messages, it executes download and delete operations. As a result, whenever a POP3 client connects to a mail server, it retrieves all messages. It then stores them on your local computer and deletes them from the remote server.

Other Useful Terminology 

An email server is essentially a computer system which sends and receives emails. When you send an email, it travels through a series of servers to arrive at its destination. 

Network Port is a number that identifies one end of a link between two computers. Port numbers identify how a message should be sent between computers. Some programs may be restricted with what ports they are allowed to use for security reasons. 

A username is a sequence of characters that identifies a user (such as on a computer system, website, or social media platform)

A password is a confidential word or phrase that must be used to gain admission to a place.

Let’s set up your emails…

Now that we have a clearer understanding of the terminology, setting up your emails will be a lot easier!

First, you will need to obtain your email settings from your email provider:

• For outlook, you can refer to https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/pop-imap-and-smtp-settings-8361e398-8af4-4e97-b147-6c6c4ac95353
• For Gmail, https://support.google.com/mail/answer/7126229?hl=en-GB#zippy=%2Cstep-change-smtp-other-settings-in-your-email-client

Once you have your settings, it’s as simple as inputting the information into the corresponding fields in your email client.

Set Up Your Emails for Microsoft Outlook:

1. Open Outlook and select File > Add Account.
2. Select Manual setup or Additional Server Types and click Next.
3. Select POP or IMAP and click Next.
4. Enter the user, server and login information. Select the account type: IMAP or POP3.
5. Click More Settings.
6. Under the Outgoing Mail Server tab, check the box My Outgoing Server (SMTP) Requires Authentication. Select the menu item ‘Use the same settings as my incoming mail server’.
7. Now switch to the Advanced tab. Insert the data below for the incoming and outgoing mail servers.
8. Click Ok.
9. Back at the POP and IMAP Accounts Settings screen, click Next and then Finish.
10. You have completed the setup of your email account in Microsoft Outlook.

Set Up Your Emails for Apple Mail:

1. On your Mac, open System Preferences.
2. Click Internet Accounts.
3. Click Add Other Account.
4. Select Add a Mail account and click Create.
5. Complete the full name, full email address and password fields.
6. Click Create.
7. A message will appear saying “Account must be manually configured”. Click Next.
8. For the Incoming Mail Server Info, select Account Type for the account type. 
9. Complete the required fields: Mail Server, User Name (enter your full email address) and Password.
10. Click Next.
11. For the Outgoing Mail Server Info, fill in the required fields: SMTP Server (mail.example.com), User Name (enter your full email address), and Password.
12. Click Create.
13. Your account is now created and you’ll see an account summary page.

Hopefully, our definitions and step-by-step guide have made setting up your emails a little bit easier.