We rely on our mobile devices to provide access to our email inbox. In this video, you’ll learn how to configure your mobile device to connect to any of the popular mail providers.
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Our mobile devices provide us with an important link to the rest of the world and the e-mail that we have on these mobile devices is an important part of those connections. In this video, I’ll show you how to configure the different email settings on your mobile devices. There are many different ways to configure email on a mobile device. You may be using very standardized protocols to retrieve mail such as POP3 or IMAP. You might also be using standardized protocols to send mail such as SMTP. If you’re in a corporate environment, you may be using Microsoft Exchange, and there are also many commercial mail providers out there from Google, Yahoo, Outlook.com, iCloud, and more
A relatively straightforward protocol to use when retrieving mail messages is Post Office Protocol 3, or POP3. This downloads mail from the mail server directly to your local mail client commonly using TCP Port 110. This is going to download the mail, and it might also delete the mail from the mail server.
Another more flexible and probably more common mail protocol for retrieving mail messages is Internet Message Access Protocol, or IMAP. IMAP uses TCP Port 143, and it relies on a centralized mail server. You can set up folders on the mail server. You can do server-side searching on that mail server as well.
And the IMAP protocol allows you to have multiple devices all connecting to that same mail server, and all of those devices will be synchronized with exactly the same mail database. The port numbers that I gave here for POP3 and IMAP are very standardized, but they don’t have to be those particular numbers. You may want to check with your network provider or your mail provider to see exactly what port numbers they’re using.
And in most cases, we’re not using the in the clear version of POP3 or IMAP. instead, we’re using SSL to be able to encrypt this mail as it’s being sent across the network. For POP3S, which uses SSL, we commonly use TCP Port 995. And four IMAPS, which is the secure version of IMAP, we commonly use TCP Port 993,
So that covers us receiving email, but of course, we also need to be able to send email. To be able to do that, we use a standardized protocol SMTP. That’s the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol. SMTP is commonly used to send mail from our device to a mail server. This is also the protocols that mail servers used to send mail between each other.
We usually have to send mail from either a trusted network or using authentication credentials that are trusted by the SMTP server. We would add those authentication credentials into our mobile device. That way when we’re sending mail, it’s automatically sending the authentication as well.
We commonly see Microsoft Exchange being used in the business environment. We don’t usually use Microsoft Exchange at home. Microsoft Exchange is more than just email of course. It allows us to have a centralized calendar. Our contact list is in Exchange. We might have reminders pop up. It’s a central point for all of our contact information and for our email.
It also integrates with the databases that are on your mobile device. So the mail application and the calendar application you’re using on your mobile device are also synchronized with the mail and the calendar that are in Microsoft Exchange. To configure Microsoft Exchange settings on your mobile device you, need at least the email address and password, and you might also have to provide information about the domain where this exchange server resides.
One nice feature of Microsoft Exchange is that encryption is built-in using S/MIME. It stands for Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions and allows you to encrypt and digitally sign the emails that you’re transmitting.
Your mobile device might also natively integrate with other mail services like iCloud, Google, or Yahoo. For Google, you can receive email. It will split your inbox into different tabs, and it generally uses IMAP and POP3 to communicate. Yahoo mail also supports IMAP and POP3. And if you’re using Outlook.com, you also have the option of using IMAP or POP3 with that as well. If you’re connecting to Apple’s iCloud, then your option for this apple mail is IMAP support only. Regardless of which email provider you use, you’ll be able to send and receive mail while you’re on the go to your mobile device.