Email Setup

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.

To make a regular email address with an inbox that can send and receive mail, fill out the Fully Hosted Email settings.
 * Email Address
 * Left of the "@", enter your desired alias. Right, select the (sub-)domain it belongs.


 * Mailbox Name
 * The name that will appear on the panel's Manage Email page. (The "sender" of the messages you will send from this address is set in the email program, it is not controlled by this.)


 * Pick a password for me OR Password
 * Tick the checkbox to have the panel generate a strong password for you, that will be revealed on the next page; this can be changed later. Alternatively, enter your desired password (twice). Please make it strong enough! It must be at least 6 characters. This can be changed later.


 * Limit total disk usage AND Email me daily warnings
 * Tick this checkbox and enter the number of MB that will be the limit of this account. If unchecked, emails and attachments' size will be limited by the total space in your account. This can be changed later. Tick the "Email me daily warnings" checkbox to have the system email you daily (at this address) that the current disk usage for this account is taking 90%+ of the allowed space. This can be changed later.


 * List all email addresses to forward to, one per line
 * List each email address that all incoming emails will be forwarded to. The emails will be delivered and stored in the inbox here as well as forwarded to all the email addresses you list here. This can be changed later.

The following options are labelled "Tidy inboxes keep mail servers happy!", and can be changed later:
 * Remove read messages when inbox reaches
 * The messages you have read will be (re)moved when the number of emails in the Inbox (the root folder) reaches this number. Older emails will be moved first. The number you set here must be between 1 and 2000.


 * Remove read messages from inbox older than
 * The messages you have read will be (re)moved when they get older than this number of days. Must be between 1 and 9999. (I guess it starts with the older messages)


 * Even remove unread messages
 * Tick this checkbox to apply the two previous rules to even unread messages.


 * Save removed messages: Tick this checkbox to move the messages that fall in the two (three) previous rules (to the specified folder, default old-messages) instead of purely deleting them.


 * Email me when messages are removed
 * Tick this checkbox to have the system email you (at this address) when the previous rules have been applied.

Finally, click the button to Create Address.

To learn more about all the types of email addresses you can make, check out the Email addresses page.

How do I send and receive email using my new email address?
NOTE: If this is the first email address you've created on this domain, it will take a few hours to be fully active and working. This is the time for the newly-created mail DNS records to spread. If you test before the DNS has fully propagated, you may not receive all emails sent to your new email address and you may not be able to connect to webmail.your_domain.com.

DreamHost's webmail is a mail program that you can use in any web browser to send and receive mail. It is located at: webmail.your_domain.com

Login with your full email address (including the @domain part) as the username.

You can also use to your email address with a regular desktop mail program like Outlook or Thunderbird. The mailbox manager website mailboxes.your_domain.com has information on the settings to use; you can find a link to it on your panel's Manage Email page.

More detailed information about all the available settings, as well as many mail client specific images and information, is available at the linked E-mail Client Configuration wiki page.

How do I migrate my email from my old web host to Dreamhost?
First you'll need to have all the email from your old host on your computer in a mail program. How you do this depends on how your old host worked so the steps may be different, check with your old host to be sure.

Then, setup your new email address in your mail program and use IMAP to copy the emails onto the server.

Now all your old emails can be seen in webmail or any other mail program.

Contact Support For Assistance with Email Related Problems
Here is the Dreamhost support contact page.
 * Dreamhost Support
 * Scroll to the panel titled, Submit new Support Request.

Email to Script