Most of us have probably used email, whether its on our mobile device or computer in schools, work or personal life.

For the most part you turn it on, add your username and password and off you go, straight into your inbox.

But when it doesn’t work it can be very annoying, specially when we start using multiple emails, on multiple devices and different email clients.

When people started first using email, we really only had one computer or internet device. Some people didn’t even have that, it was only used for schools and work places.

For the most part email systems and functionality have relatively stayed the same. It is us that has changed.

Email Client

An email client is the program you use to access your email. If you are going in over a website to www.hotmail.com, or www.gmail.com you would use your web browser.

But when you use a dedicated program like Mozilla Thunderbird or Microsoft Outlook that it what we are referring to as an eMail client.

Your eMail Address and Password

Your email address is the address specifically assigned to you like, [email protected] and you will have a corresponding password associated to you which will only specifically work with your email address.

If you do not have your password and have not previously inserted in to a computer or clients and asked it to save, you will need to insert each time or you will not be able to access your emails.

POP and IMAP Settings

The are the special mail settings you will need to access your email. Every email server will have different incoming and out going email settings, so you will need to know your specific servers to access your emails through a email client.

POP and IMAP are the tow main protocols most email serves use and if you use more than one device to access your emails, it’s strongly advisable you choose IMAP so you can keep your emails and contacts organised and synced no matter what device you use to access them.

PORT Settings

Each of the incoming and outgoing email settings will use different ports.

Each application on a network, server and IP address will use a different port depending on what you are doing and again each internet service provider will do things slightly different.

The main ports for email are: