Bluehost Web Hosting Help

How To Setup Email Account - Client Setup SSL/TLS Settings - POP & IMAP

Once you've created an email account, you can access and manage your mailbox by setting up an email client on your desktop or mobile device. This article explains what configuration settings you should use and links to our setup guides for the most common email clients.

If you'd rather access your email account online, refer to Accessing Webmail for more information.

Email Application Settings

Secure SSL/TLS Settings
Standard Settings

Email Application Guides

Email Application Settings

Your email application can be set up to retrieve email from the email server using one of two different protocols: IMAP or POP. The protocol you'll use mostly depends on the number of devices you'll use to access your email.

IMAP For incoming mail, this is for people who access their email on multiple devices or if multiple users access the same account. When you read, reply, delete, forward, or otherwise manage your email, the changes are made on the server and sync with your webmail and other IMAP-connected email clients. IMAP is limited to 20 connections per IP address, but that shouldn't be an issue for most users.

POP Use POP if you want to download and remove your email from the server and store them on your device. It's a great option if you want to manage your email through one main interface, frequently manage your email offline, or need more storage space than your mail server allows. Do not use POP if you want to access your email from multiple devices.

In addition, we highly recommend securing your email connection using the Secure (with SSL) settings. These settings enable an SSL email certificate to encrypt the connection between your email client and the mail server to ensure that your mail is private and cannot be read by anyone but the intended recipient. Some networks don't permit SSL connections, so we've listed the standard settings for your convenience.

Secure SSL/TLS Settings (Recommended)

Username	Your email address: john@example.com
Password	The password for that email account. Forgot password?
Incoming Server	mail.example.com*
Incoming Port	993 (IMAP) or 995 (POP3)
Outgoing Server	mail.example.com*
Outgoing Port	465 (SMTP)
Authentication	Password

*Replace example.com with your domain name.

Standard (without SSL/TLS) Settings

Username	Your email address: john@example.com
Password	The password for that email account. Forgot password?
Incoming Server	mail.example.com*
Incoming Port	143 (IMAP) or 110 (POP3)
Outgoing Server	mail.example.com*
Outgoing Port	26 (SMTP)
Authentication	Password

*Replace example.com with your domain name.

Email Client Setup Guides

The setup process is a bit different for each email client, and many of them support Autodiscover, which automatically detects some or all of the required server settings from your username and password. Click on a link from the lists below for a step-by-step tutorial specific to your email client.

Mobile Apps

Desktop Clients

If you have any trouble configuring your email client, double check the settings you've entered. You should also make sure your domain name is pointed to bluehost. If your domain isn't registered with bluehost, you may need to update your domain's name servers. For more information on this, refer to Bluehost Name Servers.

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