Email on macOS (older devices)

Overview

Apple Mail, also known as macMail, is the built-in email program that comes with your macOS computer. This walk through will show you how to configure older versions of Apple Mail to work with your new email address.

iOS updates

When apple pushes an update for iOS, it can sometimes break the email account settings. Please see here for more information.

Before you start

First, you will need to know the username and password of the address that you are trying to set up. The username is typically just the email address. If you have not set up an email address yet, you will need to create it first. How to do this depends on what email service you have

cPanel email hosting

You can create an email mailbox for your hosted domain in your cPanel Email Account manager. You can find a guide on creating a new email here. You can also use the email manager to update a forgotten password.

If you are not sure how to access your cPanel, you can find out here.

Instructions

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.domain.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 - should be showing all dots. If not, 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.domain.com (replace domain.com with your domain)
- Outgoing Mail Server - mail.domain.com (replace domain.com with your domain)
Click Sign In
You may see another error here - Mail can't verify the identity of mail.domain.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.

Advanced Settings

If you have trouble sending email, or you are plagued with popups saying that Mail can't verify the identity of mail.domain.com, you may need to adjust your outgoing email settings.

Open Apple Mail.
Click on the
From the Mail menu, choose Preferences.
Click on Accounts from the top menu.
Select your email account from the list on the left.

Incoming Mail Server (POP or IMAP)

In the Account Information tab -

Incoming Mail Server - mail.domain.com, with your own domain name replacing domain.com.
User Name - your full email address
Password - your email password

In the Advanced tab -

Server Port - 993 for IMAP, 995 for POP
Use SSL - must be checked
Authentication - must be set to Password.

Outgoing Mail Server

To access the outgoing settings, you first need to -

Navigate to the Account Information tab.
Click on the up-down arrow icon to the right of Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP)
Click on Edit SMTP server list

You should now see a list of all your SMTP servers at the top of this window and the settings at the bottom.