Setting up Demon email in Mail. The right way.

Filed under General

An oddly specific knowledgebase, I know - but after spending an hour today trying to figure this one out I thought it was worth jotting down what I’ve learnt just in case it saves that one person hours of aggravation. You never know, I may have just made your day.

Email settings are an odd one, and something we get asked all the time. Usually fairly straight forward, especially if you’re using something like Apple’s own MobileMe or Google Mail - all that needs to be done is add a new account in Mail, enter your email address and password and Apple takes care of the rest. Smashing.
Less known ISP branded accounts are a little bit more of a faff - you’ll need an “incoming mail server” and an “outgoing mail server” (SMTP). Both of which you should be able to find on your ISP’s website (or just by Google-ing). Mail will prompt you where to put such things as part of the account set-up process.

So far, only one internet service provider has given me any real grief. And that was today. And that was Demon.

The settings posted on their website, besides being horrifically out of date, are wrong.
The settings they give out over the phone are also wrong. Great.

Here is the right way to set up a Demon email account in Mail:

Fire up Mail and go to “Mail” on the toolbar at the top and click on “Preferences”.

Under the accounts tab click on the “Plus” button in the bottom left to add a new account.

Enter your name, email address and the password you use to log on to Demon’s webmail page. Then click continue.

The account type is “POP” and call it whatever you like under the “Description”.

Incoming mail server is “pop3.demon.co.uk”, your username is your FULL email address i.e. .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

So far, so good. Now, outgoing mail server is where it gets interesting.

Description, again call it what you like, “Outgoing Mail Server” should be “post.demon.co.uk” and check “Use Authentication”.

Despite what Demon will tell you, your outgoing mail server username is the part of your email address after the “@”  i.e. “hostname.demon.co.uk” and the password is probably something you set up way back when you first signed up to Demon. It is NOT the same password you use to log in to your webmail. It is in fact an entirely different “WebPassword” password which luckily can be reset via Demon’s homepage under “Customer Tools” and “Change your Demon password”. For this you’ll need to log in using your “hostname” (the bit after the “@” but before the “.demon.co.uk” in your email address) and the password you use to access your webmail. Go figure.
Now change your “WebPassword” to something logical (that includes at least one capital letter, one lower-case letter and one number, as per their request) - and write it down!

Give it a few minutes to replicate the updated info across Demon’s servers, then, back in Mail, enter your newly changed “WebPassword” as your outgoing mail server’s password.

Click continue and let Mail check the mail server connection. When prompted, click “Create”.

You should now be greeted by an inbox containing your much cherished emails. Fantastic. But sending mail will probably still not work. You’ll need to do the following:

Back into “Mail”-“Preferences” and then the “Accounts” tab, click on the drop-down menu next to “Outgoing Mail Server” and click “Edit SMTP server list”. Highlight the server we just created and then click on the “Advanced” tab.

Check the “Use Custom Port” button and enter “587” in the box next to it.

Make sure “Use SSL” is checked and that username and password are still filled in (they should be) - click OK.

Phew. That’s it. Close the Preferences window and bask in the oft under-appreciated ability to send email.

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Published on March 20, 2010 | Author: Daniel Scarfe | Last updated on March 21, 2010