How to set up a POP email account on your iPhone or iPad

This guide explains how to add a POP email account to your iPhone or iPad. Before you start, it is worth understanding what POP does and whether it is the right choice for you - for most people, it is not.

Should you use POP at all?

POP is an older way of collecting email that downloads messages from the server onto one device and, by default, deletes them from the server once they have been collected. That design made sense when people checked email on a single computer, but it causes real problems today:

• It does not work well 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 iPhone may never reach your laptop, and vice versa. Your mail ends up scattered across devices with no single complete copy.
• Actions do not sync. Reading, deleting, filing or replying to a message on one device has no effect anywhere else. Your phone and your computer each keep their own separate, unsynchronised view of your mailbox.
• Your mail lives only on the device. Once a message is downloaded and removed from the server, the copy on your device is the only copy. If that device is lost, damaged or reset, that email is gone - it will not be in Webmail or on any other device.

For these reasons we recommend IMAP for almost everyone. IMAP keeps your mail on the server and synchronises it across every device, so your iPhone, iPad, laptop and Webmail all show the same mailbox, and nothing depends on a single device. We have a separate guide covering IMAP setup.

POP is really only worth choosing in narrow cases - for example, if you deliberately want mail pulled onto one machine and off the server, or you are working within a strict mailbox storage limit and managing it manually. If that does not describe you, set the account up as IMAP instead.

Add the account

1. Open the Settings app.
2. Scroll down and tap Apps, then tap Mail.
3. Tap Mail Accounts, then tap Add Account.
4. Tap Other, then tap Add Mail Account.

Enter your account details

5. Fill in the following fields:

   Field	What to enter
   Name	Your display name (shown to recipients)
   Email	Your full email address
   Password	Your email account password
   Description	A label for this account - you can change it

6. Tap Next.

Configure incoming and outgoing servers

7. At the top of the screen, select POP.
8. 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
9. Under Outgoing Mail Server, enter the same host name, your full email address, and your password. Although iOS labels these fields as optional, they are required on our servers - you must complete them to be able to send email.
10. Tap Save. Your account will appear in the Mail Accounts list.

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.

Check your email

Open the Mail app and select the account you just added. Your inbox messages will download and appear. To confirm sending works too, send yourself a test message from another address and reply to it.

Troubleshooting

• Incorrect username or password - use your full email address as the username, not just the part before the @. If the password is rejected, make sure you are using the email account's own password and not your cPanel password.
• Receives mail but cannot send - this is almost always the outgoing (SMTP) server. Confirm the host name, your full email address, and your password are all filled in under the outgoing server, with SSL enabled.
• Mail missing from another device - this is POP working as designed: it has collected the mail onto this device and removed it from the server. If you need the same mail on more than one device, set the account up as IMAP instead.

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