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Setting up your e-mail program

Submitted by Heather on Sat, 05/17/2008 - 7:04pm.
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One question we hear rather often is "How do I set up my e-mail?"  Setting up your e-mail is not hard, but there are a few key pieces of information that you must have in order to set up your e-mail.

The key pieces of information are: 

  1. Username
  2. Password
  3. Incoming server - type and address
  4. Outgoing server - SMTP

When you have your own domain name and it is being hosted somewhere (hopefully over at Spinning Silk Multimedia), your e-mail address will be in the format of username@yourdomainname.com. So your first key piece of information is right in your e-mail address -  your username.  Your password is the next piece - whoever set up your e-mail address on the server will have this information.  Your incoming server will often be yourdomainname.com .  The incoming server type is usually POP3. Sometimes, e-mail servers are set up in the format of mail.yourdomainname.com . To be sure how your e-mail server has been set up, contact your e-mail server administrator.  Your outgoing server will usually be yourdomainname.com or smtp.yourdomainname.com or something similar.  Again, contact your e-mail server adminstrator.

OK, now that we've established the necessary information and how to find it, let's look at your e-mail program.  Your computer most likely came pre-installed with some sort of e-mail program.

Here are some possibilities:

  1. Windows Mail
  2. Microsoft Outlook
  3. Microsoft Outlook Express
  4. Apple Mail
  5. Thunderbird

Whatever program you have, find the area where you can edit or add e-mail accounts. Some are located at Tools > Accounts or under Preferences.  Click the button that says Add or Edit or Change, etc.  You will be presented with a form to fill out with your username, password, incoming server and outgoing server.  Fill these out, do not check the extra security checkboxes (unless your Internet Service Provider requires it).  Sometimes, you get everything filled out, but it doesn't work.  In this case, try entering your entire e-mail address in the Username field, instead of just your username.

I hope this article has been helpful and will be posting more along this line - maybe with some screenshots from the various e-mail programs. If you have a question or comment, please click on the comment link and share it with us.  Thanks!

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