How to set up a mail account using POP in Apple Mail

This guide explains how to add a POP email account to the Mail app on a Mac. Before you follow it, it is worth understanding what POP does and whether it is right for you - for most people, IMAP is the better choice.

Before you begin, make sure you have already created an email account in cPanel. You will need the email address and password from that step.

Should you use POP at all?

POP is an older way of collecting email. It downloads messages onto one computer and, by default, removes them from the server once collected. That suited a world where people used a single desktop machine, but it causes problems today:

• It does not work across multiple devices. POP pulls mail down to whichever device collects it first and removes it from the server, so a message that arrives on your Mac may never reach your phone, and vice versa. Your mail ends up split across devices with no single complete copy.
• Nothing syncs. Reading, deleting or filing a message on your Mac has no effect on any other device or on Webmail. Each keeps its own separate view.
• Your mail lives only on that Mac. Once downloaded and removed from the server, the copy on your Mac is the only copy. If the Mac is lost, damaged or reset, that mail is gone.

For these reasons we recommend IMAP for almost everyone, which keeps mail on the server and synchronises it across every device. We have a separate guide for IMAP setup on a Mac.

It is also worth knowing that the Mail app prefers IMAP and will try to set your account up that way automatically, because our servers support it. Choosing POP means deliberately overriding that, as described below. If you do not have a specific reason to use POP, let Mail set the account up as IMAP instead.

Add the account

1. Open Mail. From the menu bar, click Mail, then Add Account. (If this is the first account on the Mac, the setup window opens automatically.)
2. Choose Other Mail Account at the bottom of the provider list, then click Continue.
3. Enter your Name (as you want it shown on outgoing messages), your full Email Address, and your email Password, then click Sign In.

Mail will now try to verify the account. Because our servers support IMAP, Mail will normally configure it as IMAP at this point. To use POP instead, you need to switch the account type manually in the next step.

Switch the account to POP

4. When Mail reports it cannot automatically verify the settings, or once it presents the manual settings screen, set the Account Type to POP.
5. Under Incoming Mail Server, enter:
   • Host Name - your mail server, typically mail.yourdomain.com
   • User Name - your full email address
   • Password - your email account password
6. Under Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP), enter the same host name, your full email address, and your password.

7. Click Sign In or Create to finish. Your new mailbox appears in the Mail sidebar and existing messages on the server begin to download.

You can find your exact server details, including ports and SSL settings, in cPanel under Email Accounts by clicking Connect Devices next to your address. Our servers use SSL on port 995 for incoming POP and port 465 for outgoing SMTP.

Keep a copy on the server (recommended for POP)

If you do use POP, we strongly suggest leaving a copy of your mail on the server rather than removing it. That way your mail is not lost if anything happens to your Mac, and Webmail still shows recent messages.

1. In Mail, go to Mail > Settings, then the Accounts tab.
2. Select your POP account and open its Server Settings (or Advanced) options.
3. Find the setting for removing messages from the server after retrieval, and set it to Never, or to a delay such as after one week.

Be aware that keeping copies on the server gradually uses your mailbox storage, so this is a safety net rather than a substitute for IMAP.

Troubleshooting

• Cannot verify account name or password - check your password, and make sure the username is your full email address, not just the part before the @. Confirm you are using the email account password and not your cPanel password.
• Receives mail but cannot send - this is almost always the outgoing (SMTP) server. Check the host name, your full email address, and your password are all entered for the outgoing server, with SSL enabled.
• Cannot connect using SSL - Mail normally sets the right ports automatically, but if a connection fails you can check them under the account's Server Settings: incoming POP uses port 995 and outgoing SMTP uses port 465, both with SSL/TLS enabled.
• Mail has disappeared from Webmail or another device - this is POP working as designed: it has collected the mail onto this Mac and removed it from the server. Set "remove from server" to Never as described above, or switch to IMAP, if you need your mail available elsewhere.

If you are still stuck, open a support ticket with the exact error message shown and we will help.