Setting up SMTP in Apple Mail

Apple Mail on Mac, iPhone and iPad keeps outgoing servers in a separate list, independent of your mailboxes. You add our relay to that list once and then assign it to the account you send with. On the Mac this is easiest; on iPhone and iPad the principle is the same.

What you need

• the server name shown in your 2mail account
• an SMTP login with password, created in the dashboard specifically for Apple Mail
• a sender address on a domain you have added as a sending domain

Step 1: open the server list

Open the account settings of Mail and go to the settings for the outgoing mail server. Choose to edit the list of SMTP servers there and add a new server. Give it a clear description, so you do not confuse it later with the server of your mailbox.

Step 2: fill in the details

Enter the server name from your 2mail account. Set authentication to password and fill in the SMTP login and password. Switch off automatic management of the connection settings by Mail: otherwise it picks a port and method of its own that do not suit our relay. Choose port 587 and turn on TLS/SSL: on that port, Mail uses STARTTLS. If that does not work on your network, have port 587 opened.

Step 3: attach the server to your account

Close the list and select the new server as the outgoing server for your account. Tick that Mail may only use this server: by default, Mail silently switches to another server from the list when an error occurs, and you then think the relay works while your mail actually leaves the old way.

On iPhone and iPad

Open the settings of the mail account, go to the outgoing server and add a new SMTP server there with the same details. Turn on SSL and check that the port is 587; iOS sometimes changes it to another value by itself. Then switch off the old primary server for this account.

Step 4: test

Send a test message to an external address and look in the delivery log of the dashboard. If it is there, the connection is fine. If it is not, the message left through another server — go back to step 3.

Common mistakes

• Mail asks you to trust a certificate — you have probably entered a wrong server name. Do not accept the certificate; check the name in your 2mail account instead.
• Sending works on wifi but not on mobile — some mobile networks block port 587; test on another network or send through the REST API.

More about how the relay works on how an SMTP relay works; about sender domains on SPF, DKIM and DMARC.

Still stuck?

Send us the error from Mail and the time of your test via contact. We find out whether the message reached us.