Email Setup
From DreamHost
This page overlaps with Mail Control Panel.
How do I add an email address at my domain?
It's really easy!
From your control panel select Mail > Manage Email, then click Create a new email address.
Enter the name of the new email address in the Email sent to field. Immediately to the right, select a corresponding domain name from the pull-down list.
Next, optionally, you may choose to delete or forward all email sent to the new address. If you don't want to do this, skip the two following bullets.
- Delete all mail sent to the new address — Select radio button will be deleted to enable this option. DreamHost will delete emails sent to the new address without notifying the sender.
- Forward all mail — Select radio button will be delivered to these addresses to enable this option. DreamHost allows mail forwarding to external email addresses (for example, user@gmail.com) and internal email addresses (for example, user@<yourdomain>).
Next, configure the required fields for the new email address's mailbox:
- Mailbox login: Select value generate a new one.
- New Mailbox "Name": Enter a name responsible for the mailbox.
- Password: Specify a password or select pick password for me. If you select the latter option, DreamHost displays the password after you click the Create Address! button.
- Remove read messages when inbox reaches...: Specify how many messages to allow in the mailbox on DreamHost's email server before DreamHost begins deleting read messages to make room for new unread email. DreamHost allows a range of zero to 2,000.
- Remove read messages from inbox older than...: Specify how many days to allow read email to remain on the DreamHost email server before DreamHost deletes them. DreamHost allows a range of zero to 9,999.
Optionally, configure the remaining fields for the new email address's mailbox:
- Limit total disk usage...: Optionally, select this checkbox and fill in the text field to specify a storage limit for this mailbox (in MB).
- Email me daily...: Optionally, select this checkbox to email warnings to the new email address when the mailbox nears the storage limit.
- Even remove unread messages: Optionally, select this checkbox to delete both read and unread messages if the message limit is reached or they get old.
- Save removed messages in...: Optionally, select this checkbox to save deleted messages in a file for later use. Uncheck the check-box to permanently delete the messages.
- Email me when messages are removed: Optionally, select this checkbox to notify the new email address when DreamHost automatically deletes messages from the mailbox.
Finally, click button Create Address!
Notes
- Your new email address will begin working within approximately one hour (assuming your domain is already up and working with DreamHost of course!). If you've created a new mailbox, your login information will be displayed on the next screen. Keep in mind that your incoming and outgoing mail servers are both just mail.yourdomain.com.
- If you've created a new DreamHost mailbox, you can access your email via any POP or IMAP client, including our webmail service!
- Your mailbox (for example, "fred@yourdomain.com") won't have login name "fred" as you might have expected. It will have a login name like "m7483986", which your users may find less easy to remember e.g. for logging in at non-DH webmail.
- Workaround: Create the mail address not through panel Mail... but instead through Users | Manage Users | Add New User where you can choose a friendly login name from those not already taken on the DH system. Though this method creates also an FTP user of the same name, if you don't want this, you can delete it by going to Users/Manage Users in the panel. Click the Delete link for the relevant user (in the Action column). Tick the checkbox for 'Yes, remove user-name from machine-name!' Make sure the checkbox for 'Additionally remove all other instances of this user (shown above)' is unticked. Click the Remove User button.
- Someone at irc said, we can use the username (fred, not m7483986) for email login.
How do I send email from my new email address?
In a pinch, you can always just use DreamHost's free webmail system at your own domain!
If you'd like to use a regular email client, you just need to go to your mail settings and set your from address in your program to be the one you'd like! You should also set your outgoing (SMTP) email server to be mail.yourdomain.com, and if you have an option to specify a port, you can change it from 25 (the default) to 587. Also, be sure to select that "my server requires authentication" and enter your username (most likely m#######-style) and mail password.
You should now be able to send email from your regular email client.
If you receive an error stating "Quota Exceeded", you should visit this page : smtp-quota
How do I read email sent to my new email address?
Again, in a pinch, you can always just use DreamHost's free webmail system at your own domain!
If you'd like to use a regular email client, you just need to go to your mail settings and set your incoming mail server to be mail.yourdomain.com. You should also enter your username (just your email address - you@yourdomain.com) and mail password. You probably also have the choice of selecting IMAP or POP for your mail server. You probably want IMAP.. here's an explanation of the difference.
Further, you probably want to use SSL: secure e-mail.
How do I configure my mail client to send and receive?
If the above two articles are a little technical for you, perhaps these articles customized for each mail client will be easier:
- Configuring Evolution
- Configuring Microsoft Outlook
- Configuring Microsoft Outlook Express
- Configuring Thunderbird
- Windows Live Mail Client
How do I migrate my email from my old web host to Dreamhost?
It appears that the following information may be out of date:
Snag: Your old web host probably gave you a wider choice of mailbox names, because the names existed only in the namespace of your domain. But at DH mailbox names exist in one big namespace shared by all users. That means when you move, you can't keep keep your mailbox names e.g. "sales", "info", "jim" etc. because at DH they are already taken. (Note: this applies to mailbox USER names, not mail address user name parts.)
Workaround: None known - you have to accept the mailbox names DH offers and reconfigure all your mail clients accordingly.
As a work in progress see: E-mail Import
Please realize all this will only work if your domain is already working on the web with DreamHost!
How do I resolve "relay access denied" from Google's Gmail?
You'll probably have to contact (Gmail's) support to get relay access denied message fixed. The mail setup pages are out of date, and are unclear as to how to forward without relay problems. This happened with gmail.
Also Note: Some 'relay access denied' messages may be a result of bad configuration. Verify you have 'mail.yourdomain.com' as the SMTP server, with a correct username and password.
How do I resolve "relay access denied" in message sent from MS Outlook?
The outgoing server (SMTP) probably requires authentication. Go to the Tools menu and click on E-mail Accounts. Under E-mail click on the "View or change existing e-mail accounts" radio button and click "Next". Select the email account in question and click "Change". In the Internet E-mail Settings (POP3) screen, click the "More Settings" button. Click on the "Outgoing Server" tab and check the "My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication" box. If your POP3 and SMTP servers are the same you should click on the "Use same settings as my incoming mail server" radio button and the SMTP server will now use the logon Information that was entered for the incoming mail server (POP3). Otherwise, click on the "Log on using" radio button and enter the User Name and Password for the SMTP server.
How can I get Hotmail to accept my email messages from Thunderbird or WebMail?
Recently, it appears Hotmail or MSN accounts will reject certain messages from DreamHost. The simplest solution is to use Microsoft Outlook. If you are using Thunderbird or WebMail, there is no guarantee that your messages will get through to Hotmail accounts. This is because Thunderbird and web email clients are viewed as more prone to send spam by Microsoft.
Here is the Dreamhost support contact page.
- Dreamhost Support
- Scroll to the panel titled, Submit new Support Request.
