Setting up a new account
This article will cover setting up and email account that we have provisioned for you. We’ll go through first deciding on how you’re going to access your emails, then what devices you would like to read email on and finally the steps needed to configure your email correctly.
IMAP vs POP vs Webmail
There are (currently) three methods of accessing your email, all in slightly different (but transparent) ways.
IMAP, sometimes called IMAP4, involves leaving all your emails on our servers, and when you need to access them, you ‘view’ them but keep a temporary local (on your machine) copy. This method is fairly robust, and if your machine was to break beyond repair, your emails are all stored on our servers and can be viewed near instantly on your new computer. You can also view the same emails on your phone, tablet and computer, which will all be kept in sync. This has the disadvantage of being limited to the storage space available on our servers for email, which is significantly less than that on your device. If you have multiple devices and a fairly ‘calm’ mailbox, this is for you.
WebMail is very similar to IMAP, but will not work without internet access. If you were to leave the house, and be out “in the hills”, with no WiFi or mobile data available, you would be unable to read your emails. You do however, retain all the reliability of the emails being stored on our server. This method is very easy to use, but can be a little tedious for someone with a busy mailbox. If you need quick access to your emails from computers and laptops or use other peoples or library computers often, this is for you.
(Update: As of 2020 we no longer recommend using POP3) POP, sometimes called POP3 is quite different. When our servers receive a new email from M&S or Jet.com (etc.), it is stored on the server, and waits for you. When you then go to check your emails, your computer or phone downloads the email and keeps a copy on the device. Depending on its configuration, it may or may not leave a copy on the server. This, configured correctly, can mean having multiple copies in multiple locations, something we always encourage. This does however, mean your phone, tablet and computer may see different sets of emails to the other. If you choose to use POP3, then we would suggest using POP3 on your main device, and using IMAP or Webmail on your other devices.
Choosing between these can be difficult, so if you’ve got any more questions, give us a ring or come in and we can discuss your specific needs.
To set up a device, head back to our email support page to get instructions on how to do this. If you’re looking for a quick grab of settings for setting up a device we haven’t covered in the tutorials above, or you fancy yourself as a computer techie, these are available here.