Adding & Accessing A New Email Account
In this article we will discuss how to add your new email account to your email client of choice.
What is an Email Client?
An email client is simply the software on your computer or device that allows you to send and receive emails. Well known email clients include Outlook, GMail and Thunderbird.
There are many email clients available on various devices that you can use to access your email but it is likely that you are already using one for your existing personal email account(s). With that in mind it might be preferable to add your new email account to the software you are already using and familiar with.
With this guide we aim to cover the most commonly used email clients and provide links for adding new email accounts to them. But before we go into any setup steps it is important to know the different types of email client software available. If you are already familiar with email clients you can skip these descriptions.
1) Desktop Software
It is often preferable to use desktop software for email access at home or in the office as it tends to be a fast and flexible way to manage email. An example of desktop software would be Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook.
2) Webmail
Webmail clients can be accessed on any computer or device with a browser by simply visiting their respective websites. An example webmail client would be the GMail website or the Yahoo Mail website. Some webmail clients allow you to add other email accounts so all your email can be accesed and managed via the one webmail client.
Most website hosting plans also include a default webmail client which is typically accessed by visiting a subdomain off of your website. Although these may not be as feaure rich as bigger webmail clients like GMail they are usually the easiest way to access email accounts on your website domain as all you have to do is login with your username and password.
3) Apps
When using a smartphone or tablet email is typically accessed by using a dedicated email app. Like desktop software and webmail there are many different email apps available with some being exclusive to a particular OS or brand like Samsung/Andriod or Apple/iOS.
Accessing Email On Multiple Devices
It is possible to use more than one email client to access the same email account so for example you could access your email anywhere via a webmail client, at home or at the office on your dektop computer or out and about on your mobile phone. If you do use more than one email client or device to access the same email account and it is important to make sure your email clients are setup appropriatley so that emails are left on the server (for at least a number of days) to ensure they can be downloaded by another email client or device. If you are using webmail then you can store a copy of your emails in the cloud for as long as your email quota permits. If you are downloading emails to your computer you are only limited by disk space. Therefore a combination of both may be preferable to retain copies of your email in the cloud and locally on your computer.
Email Account Details
To add a new email account to any email client you will need the following details which are typically provided when your email account is setup:
- Email Address: this obviously is your email address eg. info@mywebsite.com
- Username: this is often the same as the actual email address
- Password: a case-sensitive password
- Incoming Server: this is the address to the server where emails that have been sent to you are accessed and downloaded from.
- Outgoing Server: this is the address to the server that will send your emails out to others, often this is the same as the incoming server but you can also use an outgoing mail server provided by a third party such as your ISP.
Email Client Setup Procedures
The steps, dialogs and wizards for adding a new email account will vary depending on the email client you are using. For information on how to add a new email account to a particular email client click on the relevant link below.
