IMAP and POP are the protocols or technologies that enable you to download your email messages to your computer or device.
To find out if you're using IMAP or POP, open up your email program, highlight the mail account you want to find out about, then open its settings or properties. Look to see whether the Mail Server "type" is set to IMAP or POP.
- IMAP always syncs with the BT Email server, so any changes you make in your email program will also appear in your webmail inbox
- POP3 doesn’t sync with the BT Email server so changes you make in your email program will not be transferred to your webmail inbox and could be lost
So if you're going to regularly use webmail and an email client, we'd recommend using IMAP with SSL enabled.
- SSL (Secure Socket Layer) ensures that all data exchanged between your email client and the BT Email server is encrypted making it almost impossible for anyone to steal your username or password
To protect our email server from abuse by spammers, we also require all emails sent through our email service to have SMTP authentication.
- SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is an authentication process that identifies the origin of emails; it stops them being sent anonymously and therefore helps to combat spam
Enabling SMTP authentication is easy; you usually switch it on by ticking a box called "My server requires authentication" in your email program's settings. If you don't set up SMTP authentication, you'll get an error 530 failure message when trying to send email messages.
IMAP settings
Incoming Mail Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 993 (this should be automatically populated by selecting the SSL encryption)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Username: your email address including the @btinternet or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet or btopenworld password
Root folder/path:
Folder separator: . (full stop)
Please do NOT enable "secure password authentication" (SPA). It's not needed when you use SSL encryption and won't work.
If your IMAP client supports it, we recommend you also set up the following folders:
- Trash
- Sent Items
- Drafts
POP3 settings
Incoming Mail Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 995 (this should be automatically populated by selecting the SSL encryption)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Username: your email address including the @btinternet.com or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet or btopenworld password
POP from folder: by default, POP will pull emails from your inbox
SMTP settings
Outgoing Mail Server: mail.btinternet.com
Port: 465 (this may not be automatically populated on selecting SSL, so you'll need to check)
SSL Encryption: Enabled (but not STARTTLS)
Authentication: PLAIN
Username: your email address including the @btinternet or @btopenworld.com part
Password: your btinternet or btopenworld password
How do I set up BT Email on my computer or mobile device? >