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Sending Outgoing Domain Email thru your ISP using Outlook Express© or Windows Live Mail

Configuring Microsoft's Outlook Express©, or Windows Live Mail, email client to send outgoing email through your Internet Service Provider (ISP), but have it appear to come from your own registered domain name.

A byproduct of this technique is an outline of the proper ways to configure Outlook Express/Windows Live Mail to send and receive POP3 email for various ISPs that support POP3 email access.

Prologue

This scenario applies to anyone who owns a domain name which is parked or hosted by a web-hosting service that supplies an incoming POP3 email account, but does not supply an outgoing email server (many don't), or your ISP prevents you from relaying outgoing email through your Domain's email server. You are allowed to retrieve your Domain's email by POP3 login, or else you have it forwarded to your local ISP account, but you must send all outgoing email through your ISP.

The details concerning your email systems, and their configuration, will be available from the web-host where your domain resides and from your local ISP. Check their support or FAQ pages, or email them for help.

The details contained in the sections below will help you configure Outlook Express, or its replacement, Windows Live Mail, to send and receive email from several popular ISPs, and even from Yahoo.

Sections:
Prologue | The Problem | Definitions | Exclusions | Requirements | The Solution | AOL | Comcast | ATT/SBC-Yahoo DSL | Yahoo.com | MSN Setup| Epilogue | Credits

The problem:

When you currently send or reply to emails concerning your web domain it shows your dialup ISP account name as the sender (i.e.: [email protected], instead of [email protected]). This may not appear professional to some corporate recipients, with whom you may want to do business, and who expect to see incoming email sent from the domain they are dealing with.

If you want your email to appear to come from your own domain and not from your dialup ISP, read on. This information applies to those who use to Outlook Express (5.0 and newer) to send and receive their email.

Definitions:

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Exclusions:

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The requirements:

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The Solution:

If your web host and your ISP meet the requirements as listed above, follow this procedure:

  1. Open Outlook Express and go to Tools, then to Accounts.
  2. Click the Mail tab, then the Add button, then the Mail selection.
  3. A window open to setup a new email account.
  4. On the opening page, of the Internet Connection Wizard, you should type the personal name or title you want others to see when you send or reply to email from your domain.
  5. Click Next to go to the "Internet Email Addresses" page. Check the box that says you already have an email account that you'd like to use. It is usually checked by default. Enter the email address that you want to show to the world, i.e.: [email protected]. This is also the account name you will be setting up here, for your replies to incoming email.
  6. Click Next to go to the "Email Server Names" page. You should select the incoming email server type, POP3, then enter the path for your domain's incoming email server, in the top input field, i.e.: "mail.mydomain.com." You can get the exact path info from your web-host's FAQs, or support pages. They probably supplied this info on your signup confirmation email when you joined your current web-host. This is not your ISP email server, rather, it is the incoming POP3 email account that comes with your website's domain name.
  7. Enter your local ISP's outgoing SMTP server details in the second field, example: "smtp.my-isp.com", or "mail.my-isp.com". This is important. You must have the SMTP email server name as supplied by your local ISP in this field. Contact your ISP if you don't already have this info. Almost all ISPs that use POP3 email supply an outgoing SMTP server. That is how most internet email is exchanged.
  8. Click Next to go to the "Internet Name Logon" page. Here is where it can get confusing. You are asked for your account name and password. These will be the login and password for logging into your domain server for your website, not for your local ISP. This info would be supplied to you when you joined your present web-host, although you may have changed the password once your account was setup and running. Check the box to remember your password.
  9. Click Finish. Now, find the new account in the list of email accounts, where all this began, and double-click the new account to open the properties pages. You need to make some additions to it.
  10. First of all, you can now rename the account to something that makes sense to you, if you so desire (i.e.: My Domain Mail).
  11. Otherwise, go to the "Servers" tab. Check all the incoming account info, then go to the bottom of the page where there is a checkbox for "My Server Requires Authentication." Check the box, then click on the "Settings" button.
  12. In the Settings box that pops up put the checkmark in "Log on Using:" Here you should enter the email login name and password that you use to send and receive email through your local ISP. Click the checkbox to remember your password, then click OK.
  13. Click Apply, then OK to save the changes and close the properties window.
  14. Lastly, to send outgoing email, whether new, replies or forwarded, and have it appear to come from your website domain, rather than from your local ISP, after composing or replying or forwarding an email, do the following.
  15. Before you send the email you need to change the account to send from. The very first field at the top of the email form is the "From" field. Your default email account address will be filled in. There should be a button on the far right side of the From field. Click the button and select the new account name for your website, from the dropdown list of your email accounts.
  16. Once the account name for your website is in the From field, and the subject and body are filled in, when you send the email it will appear to come from your website's domain name, not from your ISP. Please be aware that the email headers may show the path back to your real account, but unless you are spamming people most of them won't have cause to read the header information.

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How to Use Outlook Express 6 to Read and Send AOL E-mail

Now you can access your AOL® or AIM® E-mail using any e-mail program that supports the IMAP protocol. You can set up the Microsoft Outlook Express program to read and send AOL or AIM e-mail.

Create a New AOL or AIM E-mail Account in the Outlook Express program.

The first step to setting up the Outlook Express program is to create an AOL or AIM e-mail account. This will use your existing AOL or AIM account.

To create a new e-mail account in the Outlook Express program:

  1. Launch the Outlook Express email program.
  2. Note: If prompted to specify whether you want to use Outlook Express as the default e-mail program, click the Yes button.
  3. Click the Tools menu, then click Accounts....
  4. Click the Add button, then click Mail....
  5. In the Display name: box, type your name as you would like it to appear on your outgoing e-mail messages, then click the Next button.
  6. In the E-mail address: box, type your full e-mail address, for example, [email protected] or [email protected], then click the Next button.
  7. Click the My incoming mail server is a drop-down menu to open it, select IMAP from the list, then click it.
  8. In the Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP, or HTTP) server: box, type imap.aol.com or imap.aim.com.
  9. In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server: box, type smtp.aol.com or smtp.aim.com, then click the Next button.
  10. In the Account name: box, type your AOL or AIM screen name.
  11. In the Password: box, type your AOL or AIM password.
  12. Note: If you want Outlook Express to save your AOL or AIM password, click the Remember password box to place a check mark in it.
  13. Click the Next button.
  14. Click the Finish button.
  15. Click the Close button.

Note: If you are prompted to download folders from the mail server, click the Yes button.

Configure Your AOL or AIM E-mail Account in Outlook Express

The Outlook Express program must be correctly configured to be able to connect to the AOL or AIM service.

To configure your AOL or AIM e-mail in the Outlook Express program:

  1. Click the Tools menu, then click Accounts....
  2. Click the Mail tab.
  3. Click imap.aol.com or imap.aim.com to highlight it, then click the Properties button.
  4. Click the Servers tab.
  5. Click the My server requires authentication box to place a check mark in it, then click the Apply button.
  6. Click the Advanced tab.
  7. In the Outgoing mail (SMTP): box, type 587, then click the Apply button.
  8. Click the IMAP tab.
  9. Click the Store special folders on IMAP server box to clear it, then click the Apply button.
  10. Click the OK button.
  11. Click the Close button.

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Comcast

Here is an example of how to setup your email client to send your Domain email using your account with Comcast Cable Internet Service. First follow the instructions in steps 1 through 6 above, then...

As long as your Dialup, DSL, or Cable ISP permits email relaying after authentication, or after checking for incoming mail (called POP before SMTP), you should be set to send and receive email from your domain. Just be sure to select the domain setup from the dropdown list of accounts, in the "From" field, before you hit the send button.

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ATT/SBC Yahoo! DSL

If you are an ATT or SBC DSL customer, you need to know that they are now implementing port 25 blocking, unless you specifically signup for permission to use that port for outgoing email. Read this ATT/SBC article about port 25 blocking, and your various email sending/relaying options. In it you will see their recommendation to implement the use of your ATT/SBC outgoing email server, while maintaining your Domain's incoming mail server; exactly what we are describing on this webpage.

If your email address suffix is @sbcglobal.net, your setup details are below here. If you are an ATT/SBC DSL customer with any other email account suffix, see this page for your POP, SMTP, and NNTP (Newsgroups) server details.

Note that ATT DSL is making significant changes to their email servers, beginning in May 2007. These changes involve the names of the mail servers and, more importantly, the fact that you must now use a secure, encrypted connection on non-standard mail ports, to continue to send and receive email via Outlook (Express), or any other POP3 capable email client.

As a side note, if you are setting up your ATT/SBC email account, which sends and receives, you also have to change the incoming (POP) port, to 995 and check the box to use a secure connection, both under the "Advanced" tab, then Apply the changes.

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MSN

From MSN (© Microsoft) comes the following information...

Why am I no longer able to send e-mail from other ISP accounts when I am signed in to MSN?

If you are using Outlook Express with multiple e-mail accounts from different Internet Service Providers in addition to MSN Internet Access, you can no longer send e-mail from your other ISP accounts when you are signed in to MSN.

MSN is implementing an industry-standard SPAM filtering system on our e-mail servers. This action is part of a new set of anti-Spam initiatives designed to protect MSN customers and the MSN e-mail system from unsolicited commercial e-mail.

MSN does not provide support for accessing e-mail from other ISP accounts through MSN.

If you want to continue to do so while you are signed in to MSN, you must re-configure your Outgoing mail (SMTP) server information to ensure that all of your outbound e-mail is sent through the MSN SMTP mail servers. To do this, follow the instructions below. Repeat these instructions for each additional account you have set up in Outlook Express.

Note: Any issues you encounter with the following configuration are not supported by MSN.

These instructions are only provided to assist subscribers who elect to configure Outlook Express to use more than one ISP e-mail account.

  1. Start Outlook Express.
  2. Click Tools, and then click Accounts.
  3. Click your additional ISP account name in the list.
  4. Click Properties.
  5. Click Servers.
  6. Under Outgoing mail (SMTP): replace the existing server name with smtp.email.msn.com.
  7. Under Outgoing Mail Server, select the My server requires authentication check box.
  8. Click Settings.
  9. Select the Log on using option.
  10. Type your MSN user name in the Account Name box.
  11. Type your MSN password in the Password box.
  12. Select the Log on using Secure Password Authentication check box.
  13. Click OK.
  14. Click Apply.
  15. Click OK.

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Yahoo!

I have been asked repeatedly, "how do I use Outlook Express to send and receive Yahoo.com e-mail?" Yahoo! prefers to have its free email users go to Yahoo.com with their web browsers, where they will see all kinds of ads and links to other Yahoo services. This helps Yahoo make money. However, after years of forcing members to pay for POP access, Yahoo reversed its stance and now allows all users to access their email via a POP and SMTP, or IMAP desktop email clients. The following information is will help you get your email client configured for Yahoo Mail.

Configuring Yahoo

First, you must create a new POP3 account in your e-mail client (Windows Live Mail, Thunderbird, etc), for your Yahoo! account.

Here is the setup info for creating a new Yahoo! POP3 account in Outlook Express and Windows Live Mail:

You are now set to receive e-mail through your Yahoo! account, using Outlook Express, Windows Live Mail, or another POP3 e-mail client.

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Epilogue:

Some ISP's are fighting SPAM by requiring each user to be dialed or logged directly into their system in order to send e-mail through their SMTP gateway. This is an easy way to control SPAM but may affect some users who tunnel into their e-mail account from another ISP. Also, due to the actions of spammers, and the hundreds of thousands of individuals whose computers have been hijacked for use as spam relays, many major broadband ISPs, including SBC's DSL Services, are now blocking Port 25, the standard port for sending out email.

MSN, the Microsoft Network, is just one example of an ISP that has already imposed SPAM blocking. Additionally, MSN has imposed restrictions whereby, if the e-mail address in your Internet account properties does not match that of your MSN account, you may also receive SMTP blocking errors. This affects users who receive mail with two different Internet addresses, but want the same reply address on both e-mail accounts. Other ISP's implement similar strategies.

It has been reported that the MSN server's SPAM filter does not return any error message when it detects outgoing messages as SPAM. In this case, MSN users attempting to send e-mail may see that messages appear to send normally, but are actually never delivered.

Here is a software solution to email spam and security threats:

Mailwasher Pro is an anti-spam program that effectively filters unsolicited commercial e-mailMailWasher Pro is an email screening program that automatically detects spam by scanning the headers, subject and body text, consulting online databases of known spam, checking against a blacklist the user has created and analyzing incoming raw source code with user-configurable filters, which include positive and negative conditions and Regular Expressions filters.

We use Mailwasher Pro to screen all incoming email, using all of it's built-in tools, plus hand-selected blocklists and our own blacklist, regular expressions and known spam-domains filters. We would be happy to assist anybody who purchases Mailwasher Pro through a link on our website, with creating their own filter rules and blacklists.

For more complete details about how Mailwasher Pro works, and descriptions of some of our own filters, visit our own MailWasher Pro web page.

Credits:
Written by Bob "Wiz" Feinberg, the owner and webmaster of wizcrafts.net and a freelance webmaster for hire. If you have any input or suggestions concerning this article, send them to me using my Comments-Inquiries Form.

If this works for you I am happy to have helped. I will post a follow-up from time to time. However, if it doesn't work, don't blame me, blame your restrictive ISP or web-host.

This work is copyrighted by "Wiz" Feinberg, and may not be reprinted without his written permission.
Please send any inquiries, or reprint requests to the Author
Outlook Express, MSN and Microsoft are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

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