How to Set Up Your Email on iPhone and iPad (Apple Mail) Print

Who this is for

This guide covers adding your Linuxweb email account to the built-in Mail app on an iPhone or iPad. The flow is the same on both, and on recent iOS versions the wording below matches what you'll see on screen closely, with occasional small differences between versions.

The account is added as IMAP, which keeps your mail synchronised between your phone, your computer, and webmail. Every port and setting used here also lives in our email settings and ports quick reference.

What you'll need before you start

• Your email address, for example you@yourdomain.tld.
• Your mailbox password. This is the password set when the mailbox was created in cPanel, it is not your cPanel or client area password. If it is lost, reset it in cPanel under Email Accounts, or see our article on changing your mailbox password from webmail.
• Your mail server name: mail.yourdomain.tld, replacing yourdomain.tld with your own domain.

Step-by-step setup

1. Open Settings and go to Mail, then Accounts, then Add Account. On newer iOS versions this lives under Apps, Mail, Mail Accounts instead, search Settings for "Accounts" if you don't see it.
2. Choose Other at the bottom of the provider list, then Add Mail Account. Do not pick Google or Microsoft, those are for mailboxes hosted with them.
3. Fill in the first screen: your name as recipients should see it, your full email address, your mailbox password, and any description you like, the domain name works well. Tap Next.
4. Make sure IMAP is selected at the top of the next screen, not POP.
5. Enter the Incoming Mail Server section: Host Name mail.yourdomain.tld, User Name your full email address, Password your mailbox password.
6. Enter the Outgoing Mail Server section with the same three values. The fields are marked Optional, fill them in anyway, leaving them blank is the single most common cause of an iPhone that receives but cannot send.
7. Tap Next and wait for verification. This can take a minute or two, let it finish. When the ticks appear, tap Save, and your mailbox appears in the Mail app.

Checking the ports afterwards (recommended)

iOS chooses ports itself during setup and normally gets them right, but thirty seconds of checking saves a support ticket later. Go back to the account under Settings, tap it, tap the account again, then SMTP, then the Primary Server: SSL should be on and the Server Port 587 (465 also works). Back one screen, open Advanced: SSL on and Server Port 993.

Common problems

• "Cannot verify server identity." The usual cause is a mistyped server name, confirm both host names read exactly mail.yourdomain.tld. See our article on SSL certificate warnings when setting up email before tapping Continue on any warning.
• Receives but cannot send. The outgoing server was saved without its username and password, step 6 above. Go to the account, SMTP, Primary Server, and fill in the User Name and Password fields, then confirm port 587 with SSL on.
• "Cannot get mail: the user name or password is incorrect." Prove the password by logging in to webmail at yourdomain.tld/webmail from the phone's browser. If webmail accepts it, delete the account from the phone (Settings, the account, Delete Account, this removes only the phone's copy, your mail stays on the server) and add it again carefully.
• New mail is slow to appear. iOS fetches mail on a schedule to save battery. Under the Accounts screen, open Fetch New Data and set the account to Fetch every 15 minutes, or open the Mail app to trigger a check immediately.
• The phone shows different folders or read states than your computer. See our article on webmail and your mail program showing different emails, the causes and fixes are the same on iOS.

Good to know

Because the account is IMAP, the phone holds a synchronised copy rather than the only copy: deleting the account from the phone never deletes your mail, and a lost or replaced phone means nothing more than setting the account up again. If you'd rather not configure anything at all on a borrowed or temporary device, webmail at yourdomain.tld/webmail gives you full access from any browser with nothing to install.