Overview
Apple Mail, also known as macMail, is the built-in email client that comes with your macOS computer or laptop. This walk through will show you how to configure Apple Mail to work with your domain based email address.
Apple updates
Sometimes, after an update on your iOS or macOS device, your emails will suddenly stop working. These updates sometimes occur in the background without any user input.
You can find more information on this here.
Before you start
If you haven’t already, you will want to create an email address with your email hosting account. You can find information on that process here.
You will first need to ensure you have the correct password for the account. You can test this by trying to log into your webmail.
If you do not know your hosting service password, you can log into your hosting service and update it there.
Adding an Account
- Open Apple Mail (Mail in your Applications or from the Dock)
- Click on the Mail menu in the upper left (to the right of the Apple logo)
- Click on Add Account
- Click on “Other Mail Account…”
- Click on “Mail account”
- Fill in the requested information:
- Name – this will be the name shown on your sent emails
- Email – your new email address.
- Password – your email password you created
- It’s possible that you will see an error at this step – Mail can’t verify the identity of autodiscover.example.com. That’s fine; you can go ahead and click Connect. If you see another error for the domain, click Connect again
- Now, we’ll fill in your incoming mail settings.
- Email Address – should have your email address prefilled
- Username – should be your full email address
- Password – enter your email password
- Account Type – IMAP (keep messages synced to the server) or POP (download messages locally). See here for more information on POP vs IMAP.
- Incoming Mail Server – mail.example.com (replace example.com with your domain)
- Outgoing Mail Server – mail.example.com (replace example.com with your domain)
- Click Next
- You may see another error here – Mail can’t verify the identity of mail.example.com. Again, that’s fine. Click Connect
- Be sure that Mail is checked (Notes is optional) and click Done
Congratulations! You’ve just created your email account. Try sending yourself a test message to make sure it’s working.
Updating an Account
If you have trouble sending email, or you are plagued with popups saying that Mail can’t verify the identity of mail.example.com, you may need to adjust your outgoing email settings.
- Open Apple Mail.
- From the Mail menu, choose Preferences.
- Click on Accounts from the top menu.
- Select your email account from the list on the left.
- Click on the Server Settings tab
- You should see a check box for both the incoming and outgoing mail servers that says “Automatically manage connection settings”. Both of these should be unchecked. Once unchecked, three new fields will show.
Incoming Mail Server (POP or IMAP)
- User Name – your full email address
- Password – your email password
- Server Name – mail.example.com, with your own domain name replacing example.com.
- Use SSL – must be checked
- Authentication – must be set to Password.
- Server Port – 993 for IMAP, 995 for POP
Outgoing Mail Server
- User Name – your full email address
- Password – your email password
- Server Name – mail.example.com, with your own domain name replacing example.com.
- Use SSL – must be checked
- Authentication – must be set to Password.
- Server Port – 465
You’re all set! All of your settings should now be up to date.
Still not working!!!
There are a few tricks to try if the account settings are still not working.
- Ensure that there are no emails stuck in your outbox and then restart the device. Sometimes mail stuck in the mailbox with stop the settings from getting updated
- If the verification process seems to be taking a long time, then it has most likely failed. You may want to close the settings and try again.
- If you are on a cellular device, sometimes you cannot update and test the settings while talking on the device. You may want to try again once done with your call.
- The final option is to remove the email address from the device and add it again. While there are no issues doing this with an IMAP account, there is a possibility of losing mail in a POP account that was on the device and not on the server. You will want to make sure that there is not any important mail on the device that are not in your webmail before removing the account. This lost mail would not be recoverable.
If you have any further questions, please be sure to reach out to our support staff by using our chat service in your client area or by submitting a ticket.