You would need incoming mail server information to receive mail in an email client such as Outlook, Thunderbird, or your mobile device’s email app. This information includes the address of the incoming mail server, the port its software runs on, and what type of mail server it is, such as POP3 or IMAP.
According to the report of HubSpot, there are almost 4 billion daily email users and this number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025 and over 306 billion emails are sent and received each day.
However, if you use a web-based email service like Hotmail, Yahoo, or Gmail, and you use one of their free email addresses to receive your email, then you might not really need this information. But, for some people, tracking down that much information might seem difficult.
In this article, we have shared 5 simple ways on how to find your incoming mail server, because problems with your incoming mail server might result in not getting your emails on time. Also, here we have discussed what the incoming mail server actually means.
So, let’s get started.
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What Does The Incoming Mail Server Mean
If you consider your email inbox as a digital version of your actual postal mailbox, then the mail has to sit somewhere before it gets delivered to your inbox.
The server that usually stores this mail and then sends it to your inbox is known as an incoming mail server.
Generally, it is also referred to as a POP, POP3, or IMAP server, where POP is the short form for Post Office Protocol and IMAP is short for Internet Message Access Protocol.
And there are many mail servers out there to accommodate the huge number of people accessing and using email.
Also, each large email provider like Gmail or Yahoo!, has its own mail servers. And Internet Service Providers also usually have their own mail servers. Large companies also might have their own mail servers that they use to store emails.
How To Find Your Incoming Mail Server: 5 Simple Ways To Check It
You should know what an incoming mail server does for your email and why it is really important in your everyday management of messages. Here are the 5 ways that can help you to find your incoming mail server.
1. Visiting Your Internet Service Provider’s Website
In this first method, you need to visit your Internet Service Provider’s website, which is the website of the company that provides you with internet connectivity and email services.
However, this method would work for people who use the email address assigned by their Internet Service Provider (ISP) and would not be helpful for web-based email users such as Gmail.
- If you use an email address provided by Comcast Xfinity, then you would need to go to http://www.xfinity.com. However, some ISP don’t provide email addresses to their users and their website should tell you what to do then.
- Now, you need to click the “Customer Support” or “Help” link. Generally, most ISP websites have these links clearly displayed on their platform.
- After that, search for email in the search box and look for links similar to “Setting up email software” in the search results.
- If you cannot find any general “email software” link, then you can click on any link that explains how to set up an email as that might contain the incoming mail server.
- Your ISP might offer you both POP3 and IMAP as options. So, if you need to check mail on multiple devices, then you can use IMAP. However, if you only check your mail on one device, then you should use POP3. Almost all Internet Service Providers offer POP3, but many don’t support IMAP.
- Now, you need to enter the mail server address and port number into your mail client. Most ISPs generally use the standard POP3 port (110) for incoming mail. If your ISP supports Secure POP, then the port number is usually 995 and for Secure IMAP, the port is usually 993.
2. Checking Incoming Mail Server For Your Personal Domain
If you have your personal domain that is hosted by a web hosting provider, then you need to visit the website of your web hosting service in your browser.
- Now, you need to click the link for “Help” or “Support”, because the location of your web hosting provider’s incoming mail server can be easily found by searching their support site.
- Then, you can search for the incoming mail server and find a search result that is almost similar to “Setting up your email software” and then click on it. Because it will contain the incoming and outgoing mail server settings.
- If you are using Hostgator or Bluehost or most other hosting providers, then your incoming mail server is usually mail.yourdomain.com, where “yourdomain.com” is your domain and the POP3 port is 110 and the IMAP port is 143.
- If you want to use Secure POP or IMAP with Hostgator, then you would need the name of the server which hosts your website. And for secure POP, use port 995 and for secure IMAP, you should use port 993.
3. Check In Your Gmail
Gmail offers both POP and IMAP, so you can check your Gmail in other apps also. However, we would recommend you IMAP to use with Gmail, as you can check your email by visiting gmail.com in your web browser and also within your mail client.
You can definitely use POP, but you need to understand that once your mail software “pops” the message from Gmail, then you would not be able to log into Gmail in your web browser to read or respond to that message.
- First, you need to log into Gmail in your web browser and open the Settings menu.
- Click the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” link and select “Enable IMAP” or “Enable POP,” according to your needs.
- Finally, you need to click on “Save Changes” when you are done.
- Now, you need to type the name and port of the incoming mail server into your email software. The IMAP server is imap.gmail.com and the port is 993 and the POP server is pop.gmail.com and the port is 995. And Gmail only offers secure POP and IMAP.
4. For Outlook, Yahoo! Mail, Or iCloud Mail
Hotmail/Outlook and Yahoo! Mail both offer POP3 and IMAP incoming mail servers, however, iCloud Mail only supports IMAP. If you want to check your email in only one place such as in one app on your phone or computer, then you can choose POP3.
However, if you want your email to be available in multiple apps or if you have an app and also want to use the web-based version of your email to read and reply to emails, then you should go with IMAP.
- If you want to use POP3, then first log in to Hotmail/Outlook on your web browser and click the Options wheel.
- And then select “Options” from the menu and go to “Managing your account“.
- Now you need to click “Connect devices and apps with POP”. After that, just select “Enable” under POP and then click “Save”. Hotmail IMAP, iCloud Mail, and Yahoo! Mail users can skip this step.
- After that, you should type the mail server address and port number into your mail software. Outlook, iCloud Mail, and Yahoo! Mail only use secure POP3 and IMAP connections to provide you with more safety. You can find the mail server address and port number on the internet.
5. Test Your Incoming Mail Server Address
When you have entered the incoming mail server address and port number, you can send a test message to your own email address. However, if your mail client has a “Test Account Settings” button, then pressing that button will help you do the same thing as this method.
- Now, you need to wait for some time after you send the email to your own email address and then check your messages.
- However, if you are using Gmail to receive POP or IMAP mail from another service, then the message will probably take longer to arrive, as Gmail only checks external mail about once per hour.
- But, you can speed up the process, so open your Gmail settings. Now, click on “Accounts and Import” and then scroll down to the POP3 or IMAP settings and just click “Check mail now”.
- If you are receiving any error while trying to send a message, then there might be an issue with your outgoing mail server (SMTP) settings. You can easily verify the SMTP address and port number in the location where you found the incoming mail server address.
- If you get any error messages while trying to send or receive an email, then you can also search for that error on the internet.
Wrap Up On Incoming Mail Server
Whether you check your email on your web browser from your phone at work or use a software solution such as Microsoft Outlook, your email is handled by both incoming and outgoing mail servers.
And the role of the incoming mail server in receiving your emails is really important. So, if you know how to find your incoming server name and address, then you can customize them according to your requirements and you can easily access your email anywhere on any device.
We hope that our detailed guide has provided you with enough information about the incoming mail server. If you still have any questions or doubts left in your mind, then please let us know in the comments below.
FAQ: Incoming Mail Server
As a lot of people don’t know how to find incoming mail server, they have various questions regarding this topic. Here we have tried to answer some of those questions in the FAQ section of this article.
Q1. Can I Use Gmail As SMTP Server?
Ans: If you are using other email clients, such as Thunderbird or Outlook, you can definitely use the Gmail SMTP server details to still send emails via your Gmail account.
Q2. Is SMTP Better Than IMAP?
Ans: As we have already discussed in this article, IMAP is for receiving emails while SMTP is for sending emails. So, if you want to send emails, then it would be better if you use SMTP over IMAP.
Q3. Is Google SMTP Free?
Ans: The SMTP server for Gmail is a free SMTP server that anyone across the world can use. It would allow you to manage email transactions from your Gmail account via email clients or web-based applications.