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.

Rather access your email account online? Refer to our Webmail Access article for more information.

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• Email Application Settings
  • Secure SSL/TLS Settings
  • Standard Settings
• Email Application Guides

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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.

Your outgoing mail server uses SMTP settings. SMTP, which stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, is a set of communication guidelines that allow software to transmit email over the Internet. Most email software is designed to use SMTP for communication purposes when sending email that only works for outgoing messages.

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.

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

• Apple Devices
• Android Devices
• Windows Phone 8
• BlackBerry

Desktop Clients

• Outlook
• Apple Mail
• Thunderbird
• Windows Live Mail
• Windows 10 Mail

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.