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Instructions for Setting up your Email With IMAP

 

(You can get Thunderbird for Free at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/.)
When you are ready to set up your account, please use the following information:

Incoming server: lh1.web-host.net
Outgoing SMTP: lh1.web-host.net

NOTA BENE – Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) may not allow mail to be sent out from any server other than their own. If you are unable to send mail, this is likely the case. To fix the problem, you will need to contact your ISP and find their outgoing SMTP or you can do a simple Google search: “company name” and “smtp”

SPAM


A second issue that has clogs up the server is spam. There are a number of ways to reduce spam. The most direct way is to remove your email address from your website. In a process called “harvesting,” spammers will collect emails off of websites to add them to email lists.

You can also help filter spam emails by doing the following. Please click here to access the other document about MailGuard on how to access MailGuard and set up your anti-spam settings.

Reasons for using IMAP v. POP3


Over the past several days, we have made some effort to help cleanup the junk and spam email that clogs up our servers. We have also had reports of some customers receiving duplicate emails. In an effort to provide ongoing maintenance and make sure everything runs smoothly on your end, we ask that you carefully read this email and follow the steps that are outlined.
IMAP v. POP3


The reason several of you have received duplicate emails has to do with the POP3 account that is sending and receiving emails. A POP3 account is set up to take messages off of the server and place them on your computer, better known as the “local folder” in the computer world. When the account is set up, a user has the preference of automatically deleting or keeping the copy of the email on the server. Most of the time, users keep a copy of the emails on the servers, and this is probably how you have it set up.

When you open your email program, it will communicate with the server to find those emails that it needs to download. However, disruptions occur over the internet from time to time, and the connection will be lost between your computer and the server. This only happens rarely and will happen with there’s a spike in internet usage such as a spam attack. When the connection is lost, it will re-download a number of emails that it “thinks” have not been downloaded onto the local computer.

To solve this problem, we recommend that you change your account to an IMAP account. An IMAP account differs from a POP3 account in that all the emails stay on the server and are viewed remotely from your email client (Outlook, Outlook Express, ThunderBird, etc.). The emails are only put on your computer when you move the emails to a folder. You are also able to use our web application, Round Cube (http://lh1.web-host.net/roundcube/), which allows you to view your email from anywhere in the world via the internet.

It is possible to use a POP3 account and view email over the web client, but the significant disadvantage is that they are not synced with each other. That is why we strongly recommend using IMAP and not POP3. To better understand the differences between the two, you can read a brief description of them both at http://www.mcgill.ca/ncs/products/email/imapvspop3/.

Before changing your account to IMAP, it is HIGHLY recommended that you back up your email. There are a number of ways to do this, but it is recommended that you go to File, click Export, and save your emails through that method.