Mac OS X Mail 10.3

Introduction
These instructions were written based on Mac OS X Mail for Mac OS X version 10.2.8. The instructions apply to Mac OS X 10.3 as well.

Documentation for other versions are listed on the Mac OS X Mail main page.

Setting Up Mail (IMAP)

 * Open Mail. Select Preferences... from the Application menu.


 * A window should appear with the currently defined email accounts set up to work with Mail. If this is not the case, click on the Accounts icon at the top of the window.




 * Click on the Add Account button. A sheet will appear from the top of the menu. This is where you will enter the main settings for your email account.


 * Select IMAP from the Account Type select menu. (If you would prefer POP mail, you can select that instead.)


 * Type anything you want under Description. We recommend something short, easy to remember, and easily distinguishable from any other email accounts you may have.


 * Type your full email address into the Email Address field. This is the address people will reply to when they respond to a message from you.


 * Type in your name under Full Name. Technically, this can be anything that you want.


 * In the Incoming Mail Server field, type mail.mydomain.com (replacing mydomain.com with your actual domain name).


 * Type your email password into the Password field. Make sure to type it exactly as it is defined (ie. upper-case letters must actually be capitalized).


 * From the Outgoing Mail Server select list, choose Add Server.... A window will appear. [[Image:Email mac os x mail setup ex2.gif]]


 * In the Outgoing Mail Server field, type mail.mydomain.com (replacing mydomain.com with your actual domain name).


 * Select Password from the Authorization select list.


 * Type your account username in the User Name field. Your username is the email address you wish to access (i.e., myname@mydomain.com)


 * Type your email password into the Password field. Make sure to type it exactly as it is defined (ie. upper-case letters must actually be capitalized).


 * As of 02-19-2005, you now have two new options. If your ISP blocks port 25 for outgoing mail, you can use the alternate port 587. If you want to encrypt your connection to the SMTP server, you may also now choose to "Use Secure Sockets Layer" by checking the box. However, because your email server mail.mydomain.com will not have the same name as the outgoing mail server, every time you launch Mail, and send a message, the program will ask you to confirm the SSL certificate... SMTP-SSL connections are made on Port 465 so if you use SSL layer make sure the port number is 465 (somtimes the mail program will do this for you when you click the "use ssl layer" box.)


 * Click the OK button. You should be returned to the main account preferences window. You may either close this window, or change other Mail preferences here.

Your email account should now be configured correctly, and you should be able to check your email using Mail.

Avoiding SSL Certificate warning
To avoid the warning about the SSL Certificate having a different name than mail.yourserver.com and avoid having to confirm the SSL Certificate each time you connect, you can add Dreamhost's SSL certificate to your keychain. Note that this does not appear to work for some users who will always get the warning, even if you follow these steps. You may have to use Mail from an account that is the Administrator for this to work.

Follow these steps:
 * Open the terminal and type  and press enter
 * Your terminal will connect to mail.dreamhost.com and download Dreamhost's SSL certificate.
 * When you see that it is done, type CONTROL-C to abort the command in the terminal.
 * Select and copy everything between and including  and
 * Save as a plain text file named "Dreamhost.pem". (In Terminal.app type  to paste the clipboard into the file "Dreamhost.pem". Note that   will simply paste the content of the clipboard, so if you copied-and-pasted "pbpaste > Dreamhost.pem" into Terminal.app, "pbpaste > Dreamhost.pem" will appear in the file instead of the certificate.)
 * Double click on the certificate "Dreamhost.pem" or open the certificate in Keychain Access.app.  (If you were using the method in Termianl.app, you can also just type   which will open the file as if you double-clicked it.)
 * When Keychain asks where you want to put it, put it in X509 Anchors.

mail.dreamhost.com should now appear in the "All Items" list.

All Done!

(Thanks to the folks at MacOSX Hints for the explanation of how to do this.)

There is also a way to do this without using terminal.

For those users who cannot get rid of the warning no matter what, here are some things that also don't work (to save you the trouble of trying them.):
 * Delete the X509 keychain and start over with a new one named,  ,  , and  .  Add the certificate to each of these keychains.  Also try setting the Attributes of the certificate to "Always Trust".
 * Log in as Administrator and try using keychains named,  ,  , or  .  Add the certificate to each of these keychains.  Also try setting the Attributes of the certificate to "Always Trust".
 * Add the certificate to the user's keychain. Also try setting the Attributes of the certificate to "Always Trust".
 * As Administrator, add the certificate to the System keychain. Also try setting the Attributes of the certificate to "Always Trust".
 * As Administrator, copy  to.
 * Use the method in the MacOSX Hints link using .  Also try adding the   to the Administrator keychains.  Also try adding the   to the user keychains.

Configuring IMAP Folders in Mail
Your e-mail drafts and sent messages will be saved on your computer's hard drive instead of on the server unless you configure your settings otherwise. It may be useful to re-map these folders if you often switch between your personal computer and Webmail.


 * In Mail, select the Sent folder on the server. (There may be two 'Sent' folders that appear in your Mailboxes sidebar: one under your DreamHost account, and another by itself. Choose the one that appears under your DreamHost account.)


 * From the Mailbox menu, go to Use This Mailbox For and set it as your Sent folder for the account.


 * Do the same for Drafts and for Trash.


 * A new grouping may have appeared in your Mailboxes sidebar called On My Mac. The folders in this grouping will be your old Sent, Drafts and Trash folders. You can copy the contents of these folders into your DreamHost Sent, Drafts and Trash folders and then delete the old folders.

Displaying IMAP Folders Correctly
The IMAP server used by Dreamhost, Courier-IMAP uses "INBOX." as its root namespace. This means that OS X Mail will by default display Sent, Trash, and any of your created folders as if they were sub-folders of your inbox.

To change this behavior:
 * Select Preferences... from the Application menu.


 * Select your account in Accounts and click the Advanced tab.


 * Change IMAP Path Prefix to "INBOX".


 * When you close preferences your changes should be applied.