Mac OS X Mail 10.5

Introduction
This how-to will walk you through the steps for setting up Mail on Mac OS X 10.5.

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

The desired outcome is an incoming IMAP connection using SSL (without warnings) and an SMTP connection using SSL (without warnings).

Step 1 - Find your email server

 * outgoing - mail.yourdomain.com
 * incoming - mail.yourdomain.com

In the examples above just replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.

When you set up the first e-mail address under a domain (that is configured to be hosted with us) our system automatically creates the necessary hostnames and MX records that are required to process e-mail for that domain.

Note: If mail.yourdomain.com does not work, an alternative is to use servername.mail.dreamhost.com. You can always check what your mail service is by going to your panel and clicking on Account Status in the upper right-hand corner. Be aware that if you use servername.mail.dreamhost.com rather than mail.yourdomain.com, if your mail server is changed, your mail will break until you change the server name.

Step 2 - Setting up a new account in Mail
Now setup the mail account in Mail.

Open Mail, go to the menu and select File -> Add Account... 

This will open the account creation assistant.

General Information



 * Full Name: 
 * Email Address: 
 * Password: 

Click Continue

Incoming Mail Server



 * Account Type: IMAP
 * Description: Optional. If you are using Mail to check mail for multiple mail accounts, you can enter a name for each here
 * Incoming Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com
 * User Name: 
 * Password:  -- this will probably be filled already, since you entered it on the previous screen

Click Continue



Leave "Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)" unchecked. 

Click Continue

Outgoing Mail Server



 * Outgoing Mail Server: mail.yourdomain.com
 * Use Authentication: Yes
 * User Name: 
 * Password: 

Click Continue

Account Summary


Review the account settings you have selected.

Click Create

Use This Mailbox For Sent
With the mailbox you want to use for sent mail selected select the menu item:

Mailbox > Use This Mailbox For > Sent

This can be done for Trash, Junk and Drafts as well.

Mail missing after username change
Occasionally when changing the username on an IMAP account the folders and possibly old mail in the Inbox will no longer show in Mac Mail. If this happens Mac Mail has a special function to fix it. Mail's Rebuild command (termed "Rebuild Mailbox" in the version of Mail that ships with Jaguar).

When you invoke this command (found in the Mailbox menu), the table of contents file is rebuilt using data found in the mbox file (a file that contains the messages for POP accounts). If you have an IMAP account, messages stored on the server are retrieved again.

Editing pre-existing SMTP settings
Go to the Mail menu, select Preferences. Click on the @ symbol for Accounts.  Next to "Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) click on the drop-down menu, and select "Edit Server List". You should see something like this:Make sure that the user name is your full email address (user@domain.com).