What are the settings for outgoing and incoming BT email servers?
To use a mobile device or email program to send and receive BT email messages, we recommend that you use IMAP with SSL enabled.
This is because if you set up your mobile device or email client with the standard IMAP or POP3 protocol, the username and password are sent 'in the clear' over the Internet. This means that anybody with the ability to access your email client's login session over an insecure network connection, such as a public Wi-Fi hotspot, can easily retrieve your username and password. Once they have this information they could then read your email without your permission or even use your account to send spam.
The safest way to protect your password is to use IMAP or POP3 using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection . This means that all data exchanged between your mail client and the server is encrypted with a digital security certificate making it almost impossible for anyone to steal your username or password.
A note about SMTP
To protect our email server from abuse by spammers, we only allow our own customers to use it. We do this by insisting that all emails sent through our email service have SMTP authentication to prove where they came from.
Setting up an email program and enabling SMTP authentication is easy. You usually switch it on by ticking a box called "My server requires authentication" in your email program's settings.
What’s the difference between IMAP and POP?
IMAP
Incoming Mail Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 993 (this should be automatically populated if you tick the SSL Encryption)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Username: your email address including the @btinternet or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet password
Root folder/path:
Folder separator: . (full stop)
Please do NOT enable "secure password authentication" (SPA). It's not needed when you use SSL encryption and won't work.
If your IMAP client supports it, we recommend you also set up the following folders:
- Trash
- Sent Items
- Drafts
POP3
Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 995 (this should be automatically populated when you tick SSL Encryption)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Username: your email address including the @btinternet or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet password
POP from folder: By default, POP will pull emails from your Inbox
SMTP
Outgoing Mail Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 465 (this may not be automatically populated on selection of SSL, so you'll need to check this)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Authentication: PLAIN
Username: your email address including the @btinternet or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet password
Read more about SMTP Authentication
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