Mac Mail, Personalized: How to Access Mac Os X Email from Your Own Domain Name

There are many reasons for using a custom email address from your domain name. But it won’t do you any good if you can’t connect it to an email application.
We put together this simple guide to help you access your custom email address through Mac Mail.
As you’ll see, it’s easy to set up, and once you’re done, it will be easy to access your custom email inbox whenever you want.
Keep reading to find out how to set up your custom domain with Mac Mail.

Pre-Reqs

Before you can set up your email, make sure you have completed these two steps:

1. Purchased your custom domain name
2. Set up hosting
3. Create a custom email address

When you create your custom email address, you’ll get a list of numbers and other server information. These are what you’ll use to connect this email address to Mac Mail.
Have these numbers handy when you open the Mail application and start the setup process.

Add Account

The first thing you need to do is add the account to Mail.
To do so, look under the “Mail” drop-down menu. There, you’ll see “Preferences.” Click on that, and then navigate to the “Accounts” tab. At the bottom, there’s a plus and minus sign.
Click on the plus sign. When the next window pops up, select “Other mail account” from the list.
Fill out the information using the name you want to show up in your sent emails, the custom email address you created, and the password you used when setting up your custom account.
A window letting you know the account needs to be configured manually should appear. Click “next” and move on to the next step.

Set Up Incoming Mail Server

Now, you’ll set up the incoming mail server. This will determine where Mail looks to locate new emails. You’ll first have to decide if you want to use IMAP or POP.
IMAP stands for Internet Message Access Protocol. It leaves emails on our server which allows them to be synced between devices. If you’re planning on using more than one device to read emails, this is what you’ll want to pick.
POP is Post Office Protocol. With this, Mail accesses our hosting server and downloads the message onto your computer. It is then removed from our server. This is best if you’re only going to be using one device to read emails.
Once you choose the account type, you can fill in the rest of the form.

Mail Server

This needs to be mail.YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME.com. If you have a .org, .net, or another extension, that’s part of your domain name, so it would be mail.YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME.biz, for example.

User Name

Type this in as your custom domain email address including the domain URL. It should be something like YOUR-NAME@YOUR-DOMAIN-NAME.org.

Password

Once again, you’ll need to use the password you created when you first set up your custom email address with us.
Once you have this form completed, you can hit “next” to move onto the next part of the incoming mail server setup.

Incoming Mail Server Info

This next screen is easy. Here’s what you need to fill out:

• Path Prefix: INBOX
• Port:
  • 143 if using IMAP without an SSL
  • 993 if using IMAP with an SSL
  • 110 if using POP without an SSL
  • 995 if using POP with an SSL
• Authentication: Password

If you get a warning about the SSL certificate, you may need to complete the following steps:

1. Select “Show Certificate.”
2. Check the box that says “Always trust…”
3. Click “Connect” at the bottom of the window.

Once you’ve got your ingoing mail server settings completed, you’re ready to finish up with the outgoing server.

Set Up Outgoing Mail Server

This step determines what Mail uses to send your emails. Fortunately, much of the information you need is the same as with the incoming server, so it should be even easier to complete this step.
The first step here involved filling in your server, user name, and password again. These are the same ones you used for the incoming server. Even if Mail tells you these fields are “optional,” fill them out to avoid issues in the future.
After you hit “Create,” you might get a message about additional account information being needed. If that’s the case, you’ll need to include a port number.
Use 26 if you don’t have an SSL, or 465 if you do.
With that, your inbox should be accessible through Mac Mail. There’s just one more step needed if you’re running Yosemite OS.

Extra Step for Yosemite OS Users

This extra step is important to make sure your account settings remain as you set them. If you’re not running Yosemite, then you’re already done and can open Mail to start sending and receiving emails with your custom domain email address.
To save your settings, click to open “Preferences” under the “Mail” drop-down menu. From there, select the “Accounts” tab, then “Advanced.”
At the top of the checklist, there should be one that reads “Automatically detect and maintain account settings.” You want to un-check this so the settings don’t change. This setting will be saved as soon as you change it.
Next, go to the “Account Information” tab. You should see “Outgoing Mail Server” or “STMP.” Click on that, and choose “Edit STMP Server List” and proceed to the “Advanced” tab.
Here, you’ll find another checkbox to “Automatically detect and maintain account settings.” Once again, you need to un-check this box to deactivate this setting.
After you click “Ok” to save this final setting, your Mac Mail application will be ready for you to use with your custom domain name email address!

Need More Help with Mac Mail?

Now you know how to set up your custom domain name with Mac mail. Hopefully, you’re now able to get mail across your devices.
If you need more help or want to learn more about Mac mail, check out our blog. We have a myriad of information there for Mac users to get the most out of their system, like this post on troubleshooting Yosemite OS Mail.