Gold and Silver Hosting - Help with Email Problems

This is where you'll find answers to your questions about using your Gold or Silver Hosting account's email facilities.

Please select the topic you are interested in learning more about from the following list:

• Email User Guide
• Using Webmail
• Changing your smtp port from 25 to 587
• How to Setup your Email program (e.g. Outlook, Entourage, Thunderbird etc)
• What to do if you receive warning messages about your mailbox becoming full
• Using more than one computer/iPhone/iPad/Android to receive your email
• How email works and why your message may not get delivered
• Emails sent to me are not arriving
• I'm receiving too much spam

Email User Guide

An easy to follow User Guide is available for you to download in the User Manuals page. This covers how to create a new email address using the online control panel for your account and how to add your newly created address to Outlook, Outlook Express and various other email programs. It also explains how to redirect received emails to a different address and how to create email Aliases.

Using Webmail

Webmail is available for any email address you have created via your hosting control panel as long as it has a full mailbox associated (i.e. copies of emails received are stored on our computer until downloaded by your email program)

To access webmail for your domain you need to visit http://webmail.yourdomain.com (where yourdomain.com is the name of your own domain name, e.g. mycompany.co.uk or mydomain.com or thatdomain.net etc etc). Note that you must NOT enter "www" before or after the "webmail" in the http://webmail.yourdomain.com address.

When you visit the correct address you will be prompted to enter your username and password. Enter your full email address as the username and the password associated with that address as the password.

Clicking on the "Log in" button will then take you to the main Webmail page for your domain. Full online help is provided by the system to help to understand how the system works.

If you cannot access the webmail system for your domain or have trouble using it you can also use the alternative webmail system you'll find at http://www.cymru1.net/webmail.html

Changing your SMTP port to 587

If you use your Gold or Silver hosting account to send email then you may need to use port 587 as your smtp port instead of port 25. This only applies if you use your hosting account to send email - therefore only customers using our authenticated smtp service will need to do this.

You will usually need to do this if you see an error in your email program similar to the following in an error window on your screen when you try to SEND email:

"The SMTP server returned an error. Account 'yourdomain.com', Server: 'yourdomain.com' Protocol: SMTP, Server Response: 'rblsmtpd: 123.123.123.123 pid 21870: 451 http://spamhaus.org/query/bl?ip=123.123.123.123', Port: 25, Secure (SSL): No, Error Number: 0x800CCC60"

The details you will see (i.e. the domain name, which we have shown as yourdomain.com and the IP address, which we have shown as 123.123.123.123) will be slightly different for you but the error will generally be the same and mention spamhaus.org.

Instructions to deal with this type of error follow for Outlook Express, Outlook 2003, 2005 and XP, Outlook 2007, Mozzilla Thunderbird, Entourage and Mac Mail:

For information on why it can be necessary to change to port 587, please click here. We recommend that all users read this section in order to better understand the problem.

 

In Outlook Express:
Click on Tools, then on Accounts, then on the Mail tab on the window that appears.

Click on the line that your email address appears on to highlight it and then click on the Properties button. This will open a new small window.

Click on the Servers tab. Look at what has been entered as the outgoing (smtp) server address. It should be your domain name or similar. If you do not - if it reads something like smtp.cymru1.net or smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp.com then you should not be following these instructions! Please contact technical support for assistance.

Click on the Advanced tab then look for the port number for SMTP. It will say 25 at the moment. Change it to 587. Click on Apply, then OK.

Repeat for all other email addresses

Click on the big Close button to close the accounts window and get back to Outlook proper.

In Outlook 2003, 2005 and Outlook XP:
Click on Tools, then on Accounts or Email Accounts. Select View or Change. Select the email account you want to change and click on the Change button.

A new window will be shown on your screen. Look at the outgoing (smtp) server setting. It should be your domain name or similar. If you do not - if it reads something like smtp.cymru1.net or smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp.com then you should not be following these instructions! Please contact technical support for assistance.

Click on the More Settings button. Click on the Advanced tab in the window that appears then look for the port number for SMTP. It will say 25 at the moment. Change it to 587. Click on Apply, then OK.

Click on Next in the main window then click on Finished.

 

In Outlook 2007:

Click on Tools, then on Account Settings.

1: Click on the Email tab to list your email addresses. See screen shot below.

2: Double-click on the name of the email account you want to change (or single click then click on the small Change button above). See screen shot below

A new window will be shown on your screen (see screen shot below).

Look at the "Outgoing mail server (SMTP)" box (see screen shot below). It should be the name of your domain name or similar. If it is not - if it reads something like smtp.cymru1.net or smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp.com then you should not be following these instructions! Please contact technical support for assistance.

Click on the More Settings button (see screen shot below).

When you click on More Settings a new window will appear. This will have several tabs at the top, with the "General" tab being selected by default.

Click on the Advanced tab to get to the place where you change your SMTP port. See screen shot below.

Look for the "Outgoing server (SMTP):" box. It will currently say 25. Change it to 587 (see screen shot above).

Click on the OK button to close the small window.

Click on the Next button in the main email settings window then click on Finished when you reach the final "Congratulations" window.

 

In Mozzilla Thunderbird you do the following:

Unlike most other Email programs, with Mozilla Thunderbird you set up SMTP server settings totally separately from the main email account settings. The idea is that even if you have many email addresses (and therefore many email accounts to set up in Thunderbird) they are all likely to need to use the same SMTP server. So while other email programs make you enter the same SMTP server information over and over again if you have more than one email address, with Thunderbird it only has to be done once. This also means that even if you have many email addresses set up in Thunderbird you will normally only need to make a single adjustment to change to port 587 for all these addresses!

To begin, in Thunderbird, click on Tools, then on Account Settings.

1: On the left hand side of the window there is a list of all your email accounts. Right at the bottom of this list (you may need to scroll down) there is an entry that says Outgoing Server (SMTP). Click on that.

2: In the main part of the window you will then get a list of all the SMTP servers you have configured. You should normally only have one. Click on it to highlight

3: Click on the Edit button.

(See below for an illustration for steps 1, 2 and 3 above):

 

A new small window will appear when you click on the Edit button (see below).

In the Server Name box you should see your domain name (e.g. xyzcompany.com). If you do not - if it reads something like smtp.cymru1.net or smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp.com then you should not be following these instructions! Please contact technical support for assistance.

In the Port box it will currently 25. Change that to 587.

Check that "No" is selected in the "Use secure connection" option.

Click on OK to accept your settings and return to the main account list.

(note: You will normally have a tick for "Use name and password" under Security and Authentication, in which case you should also have your full email address listed next to "User Name"

Repeat all this for all other SMTP servers you have listed if necessary -- though you will normally only have one.

Once you are finished click on OK in the main Accounts Settings window to close that.

You are now back in the main Thunderbird window. You may need to restart Thunderbird to get it to take notice of your changes but it will now work fine.

IMPORTANT: After you make changes to your SMTP Server settings you may find that Thunderbird asks you to re-enter the password for your email account the next time you try to send and receive email -- simply do so and remember to tick the box that says "remember settings" or "remember password" so that you do not have to enter it again after that.

 

 

In Entourage (Mac OS X) you do the following:

Run Entourage and click on the Tools menu at the top of the screen. Select Accounts from the drop down list.

A new window will appear showing you a list of your email accounts (see below). Select the account you wish to modify by clicking on it once, then clicking on the Edit icon at the top of the window (alternatively just double-click on the name of the account). See below:

 

A new window will then appear showing your email account settings (see below). At the bottom of the window, under the Sending Mail heading, look for the line that says SMTP server. This should be your domain name or similar. If it reads smtp.cymru1.net or smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp-name.com or similar then you should not be following these instructions. Please contact technical support for help.

Directly under the box where you enter your SMTP server address, click on the button that reads "Click here for advanced sending options". See below:

 

A small window appears with the advanced options shown (see below). Put a tick in the box for "Override default SMTP port" and replace the number 25 with the number 587. You should not have a tick in any of the other boxes. You do not need to enter anything in the Domain for unqualified addresses box. See below:

Once you have made the change, click on the tiny square button at the top left of the advanced settings window to close it (see above - the small darker square at the top left).

Click on the OK button at the bottom of the Edit account window to close it.

Click on the red close icon at the top left of the Accounts list window.

 

In Mail (Mac OS X) you do the following:

Run Mail. In the main OS X menu bar at the top of the screen, click on Mail then select Preferences from the drop down list.

A new window will appear (see below). Select the Accounts icon to list your email accounts and make sure you have Account Information highlighted.

Click on the name of your accounts in the list on the left, then click on the Server Settings button at the bottom of the window. See below:

 

A new smaller window will appear with the SMTP server settings for your account. See below:

Make sure the Outgoing Mail Server address is the name of your domain. If it reads smtp.cymru1.net, smtp.cymru247.net or smtp.your-isp-name.com or similar then you should not be following these instructions. Please contact Technical support for help.

Change the Server port from 25 (the default value) to 587.

Make sure Use Secure Sockets Layer is not ticked, and that Authentication is set to "None". When set to "None", it does not matter if any password or username is shown "dimmed" in the User Name and Password boxes. They will not be used.

Click on the OK button.

Click on the red "Close" icon in the Accounts list window to return to Mac Mail.

Why do I need to change to port 587?

Before we begin, there are three technical terms you need to know about:

"ISP": ISP means Internet Service Provider. It is the company you use to connect to the Internet via your dial-up or broadband account.

"SMTP Server": An SMTP server is an email-handling server (computer) that specifically deals with sending and receiving email. If you are interested, SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transport Protocol. You can find out more about how email is transferred from your computer to another computer here.

"POP3 Server": A POP3 server is an email-handling server (computer) that specifically deals with storing your emails ready for you to collect using your email program or using webmail.

When you set up an email account in your email program you will need to tell it your email address, your real name, your POP3 server's address, your SMTP server's address, your email username (usually the same as your email address) and your email password. This is the same for all email programs and all email accounts throughout the world. But occasionally you may need to adjust some slightly more advanced settings, in this case adjusting one of the settings related to the SMTP server.

In order to send email using an email program running on your computer (such as Outlook, Entourage etc), the email program must be configured to send email using the SMTP (email sending and receiving) server (computer) that belongs to your ISP. You cannot use any other ISP's SMTP server. It won't work. This is necessary to prevent spammers from anywhere in the world abusing the email servers of your ISP by using them to send spam.

So, if you have your computer set up to send email using smtp.cymru247.net (one of Cymru 1's SMTP servers) and you connect to the Internet using a different ISP, such as BT, Virgin, Orange etc connection, you will be unable to send email unless you make changes to the configuration of your email accounts on your computer to match the settings required by that ISP. This can be a serious problem and annoyance for customers who have notebooks and tend to go from place to place and use different companies for their internet connection at each location.

The solution is to subscribe to a Cymru 1 Gold or Silver hosting account and choose our optional "Universal SMTP" service. This costs an additional £10 + VAT per month on top of your normal Gold or Silver account subscription. It allows you to use your own domain name as the SMTP server address, which means you do not need to change it all the time. A special username and password are used to "authenticate" (prove you are who you say you are and that you are allowed to send email through your domain name) your computer to allow it to send email. Using this service means you never need to change your SMTP server address no matter where you are and which ISP you happen to be using to connect to the Internet.

BUT...lately a number of internet users have allowed their computers to get infected by hidden spam sending programs. These programs make direct use of the SMTP server belonging to the ISP that the user is connected to. In order to combat this problem, many ISPs prevent users from using the default SMTP "port", which is number 25, and require that they use port 587 instead. This simple change may sound simplistic, but for various reasons it works very well. [If you are interested in knowing that a "port" is, you can think of a "port" as being an extension to an address. For example, if we were to send a letter to "High Street, My Town, LL49 9ZR" the postman would know roughly where to deliver it but not the exact place. But if we were to address it as "123 High Street, My Town, LL49 9ZR" then the postman knows exactly where to deliver it. Think of the "port" number as being the equivalent of the "123" in the postal address.]

In addition to all this, many spam filters will block email that is sent directly via port 25 if they are sent from an internet address known to belong to a dial-up or broadband account.

The end result of this is that when using the Cymru 1 "Universal SMTP" service it is sensible, and usually absolutely necessary, to change from using the default port of 25 to a port of 587.

Setting Up Your Email Program

The basics of setting up an email account is very similar for all Email programs. You’ll find specific information on setting up you email account in a number of Email programs, including Outlook Express, Outlook 2003, Outlook XP, Outlook 2007, Thunderbird, Entourage and Mac Mail a little later on.

Regardless of which program you use, when setting up an email account in any email program you will be asked for the same basic set of information. Please use the following as a guide on how to answer the basic questions when asked. Even if you are an expert computer user, please pay attention to item 6 and also the important notes that follow:

1) Your Name. Enter your real name (or the name of your company if you prefer)

2) Your Email Address. Enter the full email address (you@yourdomain.com) that you have created in the Mail section of the Control Panel.

3) Your Email server type. Select POP3 (or just POP) if asked. (Not all email programs ask for this information when setting up an account so don’t worry if you don’t see this option).

4) Your POP3 (incoming email) server address. Enter the name of your domain name here, without any www or similar. E.g. just enter yourdomain.com and not www.yourdomain.com or mail.yourdomain.com etc.

5) Your SMTP (outgoing email) server address. You need to contact your ISP (the company you use to connect to the internet) for advice on what to enter here. Often it is something along the lines of smtp.your-isp.com or mail.your-isp.com or similar. For example, if you use Cymru 1 to provide your internet access, you would enter smtp.cymru247.net for this question. If you use our universal SMTP service: (an extra-cost option allowing you to send email without changing settings no matter where you are in the world and no matter which ISP you use to connect to the internet) you will need to enter a different address .Please contact Technical Support for more information.

6) Your email account username and password. For your email account username you must enter your full email address (e.g. you@yourdomain.com) and NOT just the part before the @ symbol. Many email programs will automatically suggest the username for you based on your email address but will do so incorrectly (e.g. they will incorrectly suggest your email account username should be you instead of you@yourdomain.com).

Important Note: Some ISPs may require you to change an advanced setting in your email program in order to be able to send email via their SMTP servers (step 5 above). If you have difficulty sending email please contact your ISP for help - unless you use Cymru 1 to provide your internet access, or have subscribed to our Universal SMTP service, we will not be able to advise you on which settings to use nor diagnose problems with sending email.

 

Using Outlook Express to collect your email

Launch Outlook Express.

Click on the Tools drop down menu, and select Accounts from this list.

A new window called Internet Accounts will appear, with several tabs across the top (All, Mail and so on). Click on the Mail tab.

Create a new email account. You do this as follows:

1) Click on the Add button and select Mail from the list of items that appear.

2) This will launch a Wizard that will ask you some questions and set up your email system automatically.

3) The first thing the Wizard asks for is your name. Just tell it your real name (or company name), as you'd like it to appear along with your email address at the top of your email.

4) Click on the Next button

5) In the next screen, make sure the "I already have an e-mail address that I'd like to use" option is selected. In the Email address line, enter your email address (e.g. myname@mydomain.com)

6) Click on the Next button

7) In the next screen, make sure POP3 is selected in the "My Incoming mail server is '" line. If it is not, then change it.

8) In the Incoming mail (POP3, IMAP or HTTP) server line, enter the name of your domain's POP3 server, which is simply the name of your domain (e.g. mydomain.com)

9) In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server line, enter the name of your ISP’s SMTP server. You can get this information from your ISP – unless we provide your internet connection as well as your hosting account we cannot provide this information. If Cymru 1 provides your Internet connection as well as your hosting account then you need to enter smtp.cymru247.net (Unless you use our optional Universal SMTP service which allows you to send email wherever you are in the world and no matter which ISP you connect with, in which case you would need to enter a different address. Please contact Technical Support for more information)

10) Click on the Next button

11) In the next screen you will be asked for your email account username and password. ** You need to enter your full email address as the email account username and NOT just the part before the @. So if you want to configure Outlook Express to collect email for you@yourdomain.com you need to enter you@yourdomain.com and NOT just you. Enter the password you chose for your email address when you set it up.

Please note that usernames and passwords are CaSE SEnsitiVE.

12) Make sure that "Log on using Secure Password Authentication" is NOT ticked.

13) Click on the Next button

14) You are almost finished. The next screen will tell you that you've finished setting up your account. Now simply click on the Finish button. A new account will have been created and you'll see it listed in the Mail tab of the Internet Accounts window.

15) To close this window, click on the Close button.

16) Click on the big Send/Recv button in the Outlook Express button bar towards the top of the screen to send and receive your email. Further help on using Outlook Express can be found by using the Outlook Express Help menu option, just to the right of the Messages menu option at the top of the main Outlook Express window.

 

Using Microsoft Outlook (version 2003, 2005, XP and 2007) to collect your email

Run Outlook and click on the Tools menu.

Select Email Accounts (or just Accounts) from the list displayed.

Now do the following to create a new account:

1) Select "Add a new e-mail account" from the main E-mail Accounts window and click on Next. A new page will appear

2) From the "Server Type" list window, select POP3 and click on the Next button. A new page will appear

3) Under the User Information heading, enter your real name or organisation in the "Your Name" line. This is just the information that will be transmitted along with your emails -- it doesn't matter what it is as long as you don't mind other people seeing this information at the top of all your emails.

4) In the E-mail Address line, enter your email address (e.g. me@mydomain.com).

5) In the User Name line, enter your full email address again (e.g. me@mydomain.com) – not not just enter the part of the email address before the @ (i.e. do not just enter me)

6) In the Password line, enter the password for this email account.

7) Make sure there is a tick in the Remember password box if you don't want to have to type your password in each time you collect your email. However, if other people use your computer and you don't want them collecting your email, make sure there is no tick here.

8) Make sure there is no tick in the Log on using Secure Password Authentication box.

9) In the Incoming mail server (POP3) line, enter your domain's pop3. server address, which is just your domain name (e.g. mydomain.com)

10) In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) server line, enter the name of your ISP’s SMTP server. You can get this information from your ISP – unless we provide your internet connection as well as your hosting account we cannot provide this information. If Cymru 1 provides your Internet connection as well as your hosting account then you need to enter smtp.cymru247.net (Unless you use our optional Universal SMTP service which allows you to send email wherever you are in the world and no matter which ISP you connect with, in which case you would need to enter a different address. Please contact Technical Support for more information)

11) At this point everything should be working correctly. If you click on the "Test Account Settings" button, Outlook XP will make sure everything is working correctly, and tell you what isn't - this can help you trouble-shoot further.

 

Using Mozilla Thunderbird to collect your Email Run Thunderbird.

Click on Tools then select Account Settings.

Click on the Add Account button Select Email account from the list of three options and proceed as follows:

1) Enter your real name (or your organisation’s name if you prefer) in the Your Name box.

2) Enter your full email address in the Email Address box

3) Click on the Next button

4) Select POP3 rather than IMAP when asked, and enter your POP3 server address (which is your full domain name – e.g. yourdomain.com) in the Incoming Server box.

5) Click on the Next button

6) In the Incoming User Name box, enter your full email address – not just the part before the @ symbol. In other words enter you@yourdomain.com and not just you.

7) Unless you use our Universal SMTP service, leave the Outgoing User Name box blank (or enter your full email address again if need be).

8) Click on the Next button

9) In the Account name, enter a name for the account you have just created. This is just a description and is not part of any settings. It is usually best to enter your full email address in this box.

10) Click on Next.

11) Click on Finish.

12) Click once on “Outgoing Server (SMTP)” in the left hand column to highlight it.

13) If this is the very first email address you have entered in Thunderbird then you can use the Add button on the right hand side of the page to add an outgoing server SMTP address. Give it is textual description (normally you should enter the same thing as you enter for the server name – see the next step)

14) Enter the address of your ISP’s SMTP server in the Server Name box. Contact your ISP for details. If you use Cymru 1 to provide your internet access you would normally enter smtp.cymru247.net

15) Make sure there is no tick in the Use name and password (Unless you use our Universal SMTP service – please contact Technical Support for details).

16) Choose the “No” option for the Use secure connection.

17) Click on OK.

18) Click on the name of your newly created email address in the right hand column of the Account settings window. Change the Outgoing Server (SMTP) drop down in the right hand part of the window to the correct smtp server.

19) Click on OK.

 

Using Entourage to collect email

Run Entourage.

Click on the Entourage menu item at the top of the screen.

Select Account Settings from the drop-down list.

Click on the New icon in the small window that appears.

A further window will be displayed and you will be asked to enter your email address. Do so, then click on the “Configure My Account Manually button you’ll see at the bottom of the window, making sure that you do not have a tick in the “My account is an Exchange Server”.

A new window will appear asking you to select the type of account you want to setup. Select POP from the list.

A further window appears with several blanks for you to fill in. Answer as follows:

Account Name: This is just a textual description for the account you are about to add. Enter your full email address here to avoid confusion.

Name: Enter your real name (or your organisation’s name) here

Email address: Enter your full email address here

Account ID: Enter your full email address again – do not just enter the part before the @ symbol (e.g. enter you@yourdomain.com and not just you.

POP server: Enter your POP3 server address – which is your full domain name (e.g. yourdomain.com)

Password: Enter the password for your email address

Put a tick in the Remember Password tick box if prompted.

SMTP server: Enter the name of your ISP’s SMTP server. You can get this information from your ISP – unless we provide your internet connection as well as your hosting account we cannot provide this information. If Cymru 1 provides your Internet connection as well as your hosting account then you need to enter smtp.cymru247.net (Unless you use our optional Universal SMTP service which allows you to send email wherever you are in the world and no matter which ISP you connect with, in which case you would need to enter a different address. Please contact Technical Support for more information)

Click on OK.

 

Using Mac Mail to collect your email

Run Mail. In the main OS X menu bar at the top of the screen, click on Mail then select Preferences from the drop down list. A new window will appear.

Select the Accounts icon then click on the small “+” symbol you’ll see at the bottom of the left hand column.

A new page will appear – fill it in as follows:

Select POP as the account type.

Description: This is just a textual description for the account you are about to add. Enter your full email address here to avoid confusion.

Email address: Enter your full email address here

Full Name: Enter your real name (or your organisation’s name) here

Incoming mail server: Enter your POP3 server address – which is your full domain name (e.g. yourdomain.com)

Username: Enter your full email address again – do not just enter the part before the @ symbol (e.g. enter you@yourdomain.com and not just you.

Password: Enter the password for your email address

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): If it is blank, click on Server Settings. Enter the name of your ISP’s SMTP server. You can get this information from your ISP – unless we provide your internet connection as well as your hosting account we cannot provide this information. If Cymru 1 provides your Internet connection as well as your hosting account then you need to enter smtp.cymru247.net (Unless you use our optional Universal SMTP service which allows you to send email wherever you are in the world and no matter which ISP you connect with, in which case you would need to enter a different address. Please contact Technical Support for more information).

What to do if you receive warning messages about your mailbox becoming full

What is a mailbox? How does it become full? Does it matter if it becomes full?

A mailbox is a special storage area on our servers where messages sent to your email address are temporarily held.

When you use your email program (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, Mac Mail etc) it will connect to one of our servers and download all the messages from your mailbox to your computer. Two copies of your received emails now exist: one on your computer, and one in your mailbox on one of our servers.

Once your email program is satisfied that the messages have been downloaded correctly, under normal circumstances it will then automatically delete the copy stored in mailbox on our server, freeing up space for newer messages to be received and preventing your mailbox from becoming full.

The automatic deletion process is important because your mailbox has a limited amount of storage capacity - usually 20 to 40Mb depending on the type of hosting account that you have. This is more than enough capacity for most users because there need only be enough space in the mailbox to temporarily store messages between the times that you use your email program.

No matter how much capacity your mailbox has, however, your mailbox can become full if your email program is not correctly configured to automatically delete messages once they have been downloaded. And if you only ever use our Webmail system instead of using an email program, your mailbox can become full if you never delete and purge older messages you no longer need.

Your mailbox can also become full if you receive many messages with very large attachments in-between the times that you use your email program. For example, if your mailbox has a 40Mb capacity and someone sends you a message with a 40Mb attachment (very unlikely!) your mailbox will immediately be full and will not accept any more messages until you use your email program to download the 40Mb message and the copy in your mailbox on our server gets deleted. If you regularly receive emails with large attachments like this, or you need a mailbox with additional capacity for any other reason, please contact the Sales department - mailboxes with capacities up to 4Gb are available if needed.

The crucial thing to remember is that if your mailbox reaches 100% capacity (or even just close to it) you will stop being able to receive new messages - it won't have space to store them, and anyone sending you a message will receive a delivery failure notification ("bounce message") informing them that their message could not be delivered. It is therefore vital that you make sure your email program is correctly configured and that you never allow your mailbox to get too close to being 100% full.

 

How do I prevent my mailbox from becoming full?

If you use Webmail: Webmail is basically just a program that allows you to access the messages stored in your mailbox on our server. It does not have any additional storage capacity of its own. If you ONLY use Webmail to access your emails, ALL your messages remain in your mailbox on our server until you delete them manually. This means that in order to prevent your mailbox becoming full you must regularly delete old messages you don't want. IMPORTANT: Remember that you must also click on the "Purge Deleted" link you'll see on the right hand side of the webmail window, just above your list of email messages, in order to remove deleted messages permanently from your mailbox. In Webmail, "deleting" a message simply moves the message to a "trash" folder and does not actually remove the message from your mailbox. Clicking on the "Purge Deleted" removes messages from the "trash" folder completely, freeing up space.

If you use an email program such as Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, Windows Mail or Mac Mail, you may have deliberately or accidentally configured it to "leave a copy of messages on server". With this setting enabled, your email program will not delete messages from your mailbox even when they have been downloaded to your computer. This can cause your mailbox to fill up very quickly.

There are usually two options associated with "leave a copy of messages on server" setting in your email program: messages can either be left there permanently ("never delete/always leave a copy"), or your email program can leave them in the mailbox for a while, then automatically delete them after a certain number of days ("delete after X days").

The "never delete" option is guaranteed to cause your mailbox to fill up as old messages will never be deleted from it. It must never be selected unless you are using more than one computer to download your email from your mailbox. Even then, you must NEVER set ALL your various computers to "never delete" - one of the computers that collects your email MUST is set to delete messages in your mailbox after a certain number of days, thus allowing all computers to download all messages but still eventually automatically deleting messages from the mailbox and preventing it from becoming full - see below for more information.

As mentioned above, the "delete after X" days option can be useful under certain circumstances - for example if you need to have more than one computer, or an iPhone, iPad or Android device, all needing to downloading copies of the same emails from your mailbox. Please see the dedicated Using more than one computer, or an iPhone, iPad and Android device, to download your email section below for further details and how "delete after X days" can help under some circumstances.

WARNING: If you configure your email program to leave a message on the server for too many days (e.g. more than 7 to 14 days), your mailbox can still fill up and reject any new messages in the same way as it can if you set your email program to "never delete". This happens if you receive a lot of emails, or regularly receive emails with large attachments. In this situation you just need to reduce the number of days you have configured your computer to keep messages in your mailbox to an absolute minimum. 3 days is usually sufficient for most users - 7 days at the most. You can also purchase additional storage space from us for your mailbox if need be. But there are also better, lower-cost ways to synchronise your email between multiple computers or iPhones etc, which are again covered in the iPhone, iPad and Android device section below.

How to check how big your mailbox is, and how much space is being used:

You can check how much capacity your mailbox has and how much was being used at 5am in the morning on the day you check (which is when the statistics are updated) by logging in to your Gold or Silver hosting account control panel and clicking on the Mail tab. All your email addresses, their maximum mailbox quota and how much space is being used will be shown on the page.

Login by visiting https://www.cymru1.net/gold and entering your Gold or Silver hosting account Control Panel username and password. Please contact us if you have forgotten these details.

How to check your email settings to avoid your mailbox filling up:

To check to see if your email program has been configured to "never delete" or to adjust how many days it might keep a copy of your messages in your mailbox, you'll need to find the appropriate configuration page in your email program.

Instructions for Outlook, Vista Mail and Windows Mail can be found below. For other email programs please use the Help facility in your email program, and search for "leave a copy of messages on server" or "read email messages on multiple computers".

 

In Outlook 2010 and later (2016, 2019, Outlook 365 etc):
Click on the File menu, then click on the square "Account Settings" button

Next, click on Manage Profiles option you'll see at the bottom of the list that appears.

You may be asked to confirm you want to allow this program to change settings - say yes if asked.

A new window will then appear on your screen with a title of "Mail Setup - Outlook"

Click on the first button on the right - "Email accounts".

You'll now see a window with a list of your email accounts.

Double-click on the email account you want to change (or select it and choose "Change"), and a new window will appear.

Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears.

You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window.

Untick the "leave copy of messages on the server" tick box to disable this feature completely, or select the "remove from server after" option and select 3 to 7 days.

 

In Outlook 2007:

Click on Tools, then on Account Settings, then select the Email tab.

Double-click on the email account you want to change (or select it and choose "Change"), and a new window will appear. Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears. You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window. Untick the "leave copy of messages on the server" tick box to disable this feature completely, or select the "remove from server after" option and select 3 to 7 days.

 

In Windows Mail, Vista Mail, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2005 and Outlook XP

Click on Tools then on Accounts (or Email accounts)

If asked, select View or Change

Select the email account you want to change by clicking on it, then select click on the Change button. A new window will appear.

Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears. You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window. Untick the "leave copy of messages on the server" tick box to disable this feature completely, or select the "remove from server after" option and select 3 to 7 days.

 

Using more than one computer, or an iPhone, iPad, Android device, to download your email

If you have more than one computer, or if you have an iPhone, iPad or Android device, and you want to be able to download copies of your email on all of them, you need to set things up in a particular way. You must also understand some of the basics of how email is stored.

When someone sends you an email, it is delivered to and stored in a mailbox on one of our servers. A mailbox is simply a special storage area on our servers where messages sent to your email address are temporarily held.

When you use your email program (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Entourage, Mac Mail etc) it will connect to our server and download all the messages from your mailbox to your computer. Two copies of your received emails now exist: one on your computer, and one in your mailbox on our server.

Once your email program is satisfied that the messages have been downloaded correctly, under normal circumstances it will then automatically delete the copy stored in mailbox on our server, freeing up space for newer messages to be received and preventing your mailbox from becoming full.

This is the way things should be set up if you only have one computer and only want to download your messages onto that computer. But what if you have an iPhone, iPad, Android device, or more than one computer (one at home and one in the office) and want to be able to receive your email on all of them? If you set up your main email program to download messages and then immediately delete them from your mailbox on our server, when any of your other computers or devices connect to our server and look for email, they will not find anything to download because your main email program will have deleted them from your mailbox after it downloaded them.

There are lots of options to get around this problem. Here's a summary of some of them:

1) Create an additional email address (ideally on our servers but alternatively you can use a Gmail or me.com address) and configure your normal email address to forward a copy of all messages received to that additional address. You can then configure a second computer/iPhone/etc to collect email from that additional address (and to delete the messages from the additional address's mailbox after downloading them).

This option is OK but not ideal. Option 3 is best if you have an iPhone/iPad/Android phone etc.

 

2) Configure your main computer to not immediately delete messages from your mailbox after downloading them, but to leave a copy of messages in your mailbox for a few days instead. You can then configure your second computer/iPhone/etc to download messages from your mailbox and never delete them once downloaded to the second computer/iPhone/etc. As long as your main computer is set to delete the messages it has downloaded after, say, 3 days, your mailbox will not normally fill up, and you will be able to receive all your emails on all your computers as long as each additional device is used at least once every 3 days.

This is a good option for a second computer at home, and the simplest to arrange but this option is not suitable for a mobile device such as a laptop, iPhone, Android etc because of problems with sending email.

To be able to SEND email on your additional computers/iPhone/Android/etc you will need to configure them to use the SMTP (email sending server) belonging to the ISP that provides you with Internet access wherever that computer or device is located. For a computer at home, you'd use the SMTP server address of your home ISP. For a mobile device or laptop things get tricky, because the ISP you connect to the Internet to will depend on where you are, and whether you are connecting via WiFi or via your mobile phone provider's network. To get around this problem you can subscribe to our Universal Authenticated SMTP service, which works wherever you are and no matter which ISP you are connected to, but it does cost £10 + VAT per month. We therefore strongly recommend option 3 below when using an iPhone/iPad/Android/Laptop etc.

You must also be careful to configure your main computer to automatically delete messages after only a few days - don't select 14 or 28 or more - as otherwise your mailbox will fill up, reject new messages and none of your computers or devices will receive email. We'll briefly explain how to set your main email program to leave a copy of messages in your mailbox for a few days a little later on.

 

3) Create a Google Mail (GMail) account and configure it to collect and store copies of all messages sent to your normal email address, then configure your second computer/iPhone/iPad/Android device to collect email from this GMail account. This is by far the best option and has a number of advantages over all the other options.

On your main computer, configure the email program to keep a copy of received messages on the server (i.e. in your mailbox on our server) for 1 to 3 days (We'll briefly explain how to set your main email program to leave a copy of messages in your mailbox for a few days a little later on.).

Next, configure your GMail account to collect email from your mailbox on our server and to never delete messages after collecting them. With Gmail, messages are automatically collected every 5 to 20 minutes. From this point, your Gmail mailbox will start collecting absolutely all the email you receive, and with its 10Gb capacity, you will find it is a great way to archive all your email for many years.

You can then configure all your additional computers to collect email from your GMail account instead of from your mailbox on our server. You'll find special iPhone, iPad and Android apps are available - most probably pre-installed on your mobile device. For laptops/notebooks, you can use any email program. For instructions on how to configure such apps, or to configure a normal email program to connect to GMail, please refer to Google's Gmail Help section.

Please also note that you will be allowed to use Google's SMTP (email sending) servers to send email, and should configure your email program to do so and it will allow you to send email no matter which ISP or network you are using to connect to the Internet. This is extremely useful as otherwise sending email from your additional devices would be a problem.

Next, configure Gmail to make any email you send via your Gmail account appear to be "from" your "real" email address (i.e. "from" you@your-company.com as opposed to you@gmail.com). Optionally, configure Gmail to send a copy of any messages you send from your additional devices to the inbox of your "real" email address. In this way you'll have a copy of all the emails you send on all your devices, no matter which device you send them from.

At this point, apart from your main computer, all your various devices will collect email from your Gmail account, which in turn will be collecting email from your "real" email account (mailbox on our server). All your devices will therefore have access to all your received email, and your mailbox on our server will not need to be particularly large. Messages you send via your various devices will be accessible on all your devices and on your main computer (if you optionally tell Gmail to send a copy to your real email address). And as we mentioned previously, there's also no need to worry about configuring SMTP email sending settings -- when you send email they will be sent via Google's servers, automatically, no matter which mobile network you connect to or whether you are connected to a WiFi network almost anywhere in the world.

In addition, you can access your Gmail mailbox via the Gmail web interface almost anywhere in the world.

Unfortunately we can't provide you with free technical support regarding how to use or configure Gmail. But setting it up is very easy - all you need to tell Gmail is:

Your email address
Your email account username (which is the same as your FULL email address, NOT just the part before the @ symbol)
Your email password
Your email server address (which is the same as your domain name, e.g. yourdomain.com)

Please contact us if you need a reminder of your password.

You will need to prove to Google that you are the legitimate user of the email address you want to send messages "from": you can do this from within the Gmail web interface - all that happens is that a message gets sent to your email address with a link you must click on or with a code you must enter in Gmail.

 

How to set your email program to keep a copy of your received messages in your mailbox on our server for a few days:

Instructions for Outlook (Windows), Vista Mail and Windows Mail can be found below. For other email programs please use the Help facility in your email program (or use Google), and search for "leave a copy of messages on server" or "read email messages on multiple computers".

 

In Outlook 2010:
Click on the File menu, then click on the square Account Settings button, then click on the rectangular Account Settings button that appears. You'll now see a window with a list of your email accounts.

Double-click on the email account you want to change (or select it and choose "Change"), and a new window will appear. Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears. You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window. Select the option that says "remove from server after" and select 3 days. DO NOT SELECT THE OPTION THAT WOULD KEEP A COPY OF MESSAGES ON THE SERVER PERMANENLTLY (i.e. never delete) OR YOUR MAILBOX WILL QUICKLY FILL UP AND WILL REJECT NEW EMAIL.

 

In Outlook 2007:

Click on Tools, then on Account Settings, then select the Email tab.

Double-click on the email account you want to change (or select it and choose "Change"), and a new window will appear. Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears. You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window. Select the "remove from server after" option and select 3 days. DO NOT SELECT THE OPTION THAT WOULD KEEP A COPY OF MESSAGES ON THE SERVER PERMANENLTLY (i.e. never delete) OR YOUR MAILBOX WILL QUICKLY FILL UP AND WILL REJECT NEW EMAIL.

 

In Windows Mail, Vista Mail, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2005 and Outlook XP

Click on Tools then on Accounts (or Email accounts)

If asked, select View or Change

Select the email account you want to change by clicking on it, then select click on the Change button. A new window will appear.

Click on the "More Settings" button near the bottom right hand corner, then select the Advanced tab in the smaller window that appears. You'll see the "Leave a copy of messages on the server" options at the bottom of this window. Select the "remove from server after" option and select 3 to 7 days. DO NOT SELECT THE OPTION THAT WOULD KEEP A COPY OF MESSAGES ON THE SERVER PERMANENLTLY (i.e. never delete) OR YOUR MAILBOX WILL QUICKLY FILL UP AND WILL REJECT NEW EMAIL.

 

How Email Works and why your message may not be delivered

We tend to take email for granted: we compose a message in our email program, click on send, then a few seconds later the message usually appears in the mailbox of the person we've sent it to.

In reality, on a technical level, the process of sending email is very complex indeed, especially because of the need to scan for spam and viruses. We don't intend to bore you with how it all works here, but there are some elements that you do need to know about in order understand why an email may not be delivered. We promise to keep things very simple.

The basic process of sending an email is as follows:

1) When you click on the Send button in your email program, it sends the email to your anti-virus program to be scanned for viruses.

2) Your anti-virus program then sends the message to the SMTP server (think of the SMTP server as being the server used to send email -- we'll call it the "Sending Server" from now on) that you have specified in your email program's settings.

3) The Sending Server then checks to see if your computer's IP Address (this is a unique address allocated to your computer when it is connected to the internet) is listed on any spam blacklists (these are lists of IP addresses that are known to have sent spam at some point, or are just suspected as being a possible source of spam) and refuses the connection if it finds a match. You may receive a "bounce" or "Delivery Failure Notification" message when this happens, saying that your email cannot be delivered and giving you an explanation of why, or your Email program may display an error on the screen, giving basic details of the problem.

4) Assuming all is well, however, your email is then placed in an outgoing queue of messages on the Sending Server ready to be sent out.

5) When your message reaches the top of the queue (normally in a few seconds but it can take a few minutes in some cases), your email will be sent to the email server that the person you are sending your email to uses. This will normally belong to the email recipient's ISP. We'll call this email server the "Receiving Server".

6) The Receiving server will normally first check to see if your Sending Server's IP Address (again this is a unique address in this case allocated to your Sending Server) is listed on any spam blacklists (Remember that these are lists of IP addresses that are known to have sent spam at some point, or are just suspected as being a possible source of spam) and refuses to accept the email if it finds a match. You may receive a "bounce" or "Delivery Failure Notice" message when this happens, saying that your email cannot be delivered and giving you an explanation of why.

7) Depending on the Receiving Server's configuration, and any options the email's recipient may have set, your email may then be checked to see if it might contain a virus, and whether or not it might be spam.

8) If your email contains a virus it will normally be deleted and no error messages/Delivery Failure Notice/"bounce" messages will be sent back to you. In other words the message will disappear into thin air.

9) If your email is thought to be definitely spam, in most cases it will again normally be deleted and no Error/Delivery Failure Notice/"bounce" messages messages will be sent to you. In other words again the message will disappear into thin air. (there are rare exceptions to this rule -- you may sometimes get a message back saying your message was not accepted as it was considered spam, but this does not happen very often at all)

10) If your email is thought to be potentially spam but not definitely spam, your message may be delivered to the recipient's mailbox on the Receiving Server, but with worlds like "SPAM?" may added to the message subject.

11) If your message is not though to be spam it will be delivered to the recipient's mailbox on the Receiving Server.

12) Your recipient will, from time to time or at regular intervals, download (collect) all the email that has arrived in their mailbox on the Receiving Server since they last looked.

13) Depending on the software installed on the recipient's computer, the email will then be scanned for viruses and again checked to see if it might be spam.

14) If your email contains a virus it will be deleted and a message may be displayed on the recipient's computer.

15) If your email is considered to be spam then it will probably be moved to a "junk email" or "spam" folder on their computer automatically, or may be deleted automatically.

 

As you can see from the process outlined above, there are several places where things can go wrong. In particular a message may vanish into thin air and never be delivered if the Receiving Server, or even the recipient's computer, thinks it is definitely spam. This can happen more often than you might imagine - although you know your message isn't spam, it is possible that the Receiving Server may incorrectly think it is. This can happen particularly if your email contains a lot of images "embedded" in it (for example a graphical logo in a signature that gets added to all your emails) which is a common signature of a "spam" message. In addition, the email's recipient may have incorrectly set up their spam filter, or may have accidentally added your address to a "blacklist" on their computer, causing your email to be delivered to them but then instantly deleted or moved to a spam folder.

As well as your message being treated as spam, there are three other common reasons why an email may vanish into thin air:

1) The email is very large and the Receiving Server cannot cope with it and deletes or rejects it. Normally if there is a problem with a message's size the Receiving Server will reject it, but if it send it back to your own Receiving Server and it also thinks the message is too big and rejects it back, both the message itself and the error message (Bounce or Delivery Failure Notification) will effectively vanish into thin air.

2) You are sending an email to the wrong address. Carefully check the spelling. Don't assume that replying to a message you have received from someone absolutely has to work because they may have set up their email incorrectly and have entered an incorrect address to which you are then replying.

3) The Receiving Server has experienced a particular type of technical problem that results in emails being lost. This is usually temporary.

 

What should I do if my emails are not being delivered but I am not receiving any form of error message, delivery failure notification or "bounce"?

If you do not use Cymru 1 as your ISP and do not subscribe to our Authenticated SMTP service then you should contact your ISP for help as you will not be sending email via any of our systems or services.

If you do use use Cymru 1 as your ISP or if you use our Authenticated SMTP service:

If no messages that you send are ever getting through to anyone at all you should contact us for help immediately.

If only a small number of recipients are not receiving your email then it is likely your messages are being treated as spam, your recipients have incorrectly set up their email program or address, or there is a problem with the recipient's Receiving Server. You are welcome to contact us and we will take a quick look at our mail queues and logs to see if there are any obvious problems with your messages but unless we do find something we will be unable to help you any further as the problem is most likely to do with the Receiving Server, its setup, or the recipient's computer or setup.

IMPORTANT: If you use your own email server (i.e. you have a computer in your home or office that is dedicated to dealing with sending and receiving email) then an added level of complexity is introduced into the equation and it is possible that your problem is being caused by a problem with its configuration. The issue may be as simple as Delivery Failure Notices, which might explain what is wrong, are not being sent to you and instead are being sent to an administrator's email address or even being deleted completely, or it may be as complex as your email server has been blacklisted or may not yet have delivered your message - in some cases it can take 72 hours or more for an Email server (the Sending Server) to give up on trying to deliver a message if there is a problem sending the message to the Receiving Server that appears to be temporary. You should therefore check all logs and mail queues on your email server, and double-check its configuration, to see if you can find any indication of a problem. We regret that we cannot help you do this -- you should contact the company who supplied the email server.

 

What should I do if my emails are not being delivered but I am receiving an error message or delivery failure notification?

If you do not use Cymru 1 as your ISP and do not subscribe to our Authenticated SMTP service then you should contact your ISP for help as you will not be sending email via any of our systems or services.

If you do use use Cymru 1 as your ISP or if you use our Authenticated SMTP service:

Please read the error message carefully. The reason for the failure is usually shown, or you may see a link to a website address mentioned in the failure message. A link to a Website in the error message or failure notice normally indicates your IP address is in a blacklist or some sort.

If you see an error message on the screen and you do not understand what it is trying to explain (email error messages like this are rarely easy to understand), please make a note of the FULL error message and not just parts of it, and contact technical support and we will do our best to help.

if you receive a delivery failure notice or bounce message and you do not understand the delivery failure reason listed in it please forward the bounce message to support@cymru1.net and we will do our best to help you.

Emails sent to me are not arriving

There are a number of reasons why email sent to you is not arriving.

The most common are:

1) The message is being treated as spam and is automatically deleted

2) The sender, or the sender's ISP's email "Sending Server" is listed in a spam "blacklist"

3) The sender is sending email to the wrong email address

4) Your mailbox is full and is rejecting any further email

In 99.9% of cases, when an email can't be delivered for any reason, the sender of the message will get a DFN (Delivery Failure Notice), also known as a Bounce Message. The contents of this message will tell them exactly what the problem is. Please read the following for more information:

If messages sent to you appear to be vanishing into thin air, with the sender NOT receiving any form or delivery failure message:
It is possible that our servers are treating the message that is being sent to you as spam (item 1) above. The Default settings for our SpamGuardian anti-spam system are actually very permissive, effectively giving messages the benefit of the doubt before treating them as being definitely spam and automatically deleting them. However, if you think SpamGuardian may be the cause of messages not being delivered to you, you may wish to adjust the default settings. Full details on how to do so can be found in the SpamGuardian section of these help pages (click here to read it). However, please note that it is actually more likely that the person trying to send you email is simply using the wrong email address (item 3 above).

If the person sending you email is receiving a delivery failure notice with an error message containing a link to spamhaus.org:
The IP address (the unique address that is allocated to all computers connected to the Internet) of the person sending you email, or of their ISP's email "Sending Server" is a source of spam and has been added to the Spamhaus spam blacklist.

A number of organisations run spam blacklists or blocklists which email "Receiving Servers" can refer to in order to determine whether or not to accept an incoming email. The most commonly used by ISPs are those run by SpamHaus, SpamCop and SORBS, though there are also at least one hundred others. Each blacklist has a different method to determine whether or not to list a particular IP address or not, and how easily or how quickly it can be removed. Which blacklist(s), if any, will be decided by your ISP based on its company policies and the requirements of its customers.

Ideally, to reduce spam as much as possible, all three of the above blacklists should be used - and possibly a few others too. Unfortunately this would result in too many "false positives" (emails that are legitimate in nature being treated as spam) because the SpamCop and SORBS blacklists tend not to err on the side of caution at all.

Cymru 1 Gold hosting customers are predominantly business users, where blocked messages from legitimate customers making enquiries or sending in an order can result in lost business. At the same time, because almost all Gold hosting customers also have websites, they are more likely to be targeted by spammers.

To significantly reduce the amount of Spam reaching inboxes, but with little or no chance of legitimate messages being blocked, Cymru 1 has chosen to use the Spamhaus XBL, SBL and PBL blacklists. Because of their nature, using these allows us to prevent a very large proportion of spam from reaching customer inboxes, but with almost no chance of a legitimate message being blocked. This is because only IP address that have been demonstrably proven to have sent spam, or which have no legitimate reason to be used for sending email, ever get listed on the Spamhaus blacklists. You can find more information on these blacklists and how they work by visiting the Spamhaus Project website.

Despite what we have stated in the paragraph above, it is still potentially possible for a legitimate sender to be prevented from sending you a message due to their IP address, or that of their ISP's Sending Server, being listed on one of the Spamhaus blacklists:

1) Their ISP's email "Sending Server" has been used by another customer to send spam, resulting it it being added to the Spamhaus blacklist and therefore for all customers of that ISP to be unable to send email to any "Receiving Servers" that use the SpamHaus blacklists (which is a very large proportion of all "Receiving Servers" on the internet).

To resolve this problem the sender must contact their ISP to ask them to investigate and resolve the issue. It is quite simply the sender's ISP that is at fault, and if they are unable to resolve the issue then they have chosen a very poor ISP and should change to a different company. All ISPs get listed from time to time -- we have no doubt that one day Cymru 1 might get listed despite all our precautions against spammers using our services. But as long as the blacklisted ISP identifies the source of the spam and eliminates it they can be de listed very quickly and all will be well again. (Please note that a number of ISPs are very poor at dealing with spammers. It is only after pressure imposed on them by their customers who complain about being unable to send email that they eventually decide to do anything about it. This is simply the wrong attitude and spammers love such ISPs).

2) The person sending the email is using their own private "sending server" in their home or office which is connected to the internet via an IP address that would normally have no legitimate business sending email and has been listed in the SpamHaus PBL blacklist. The issue here is that in most circumstances any individual or company that connects to the internet should send email via their ISP's email "sending server" and not their own private one. Emails that originate from a range of IP addresses that would normally be used by an ISP's customers are therefore highly likely to be generated by viruses and Trojan horse programs, or directly by spammers, as they often use their own built-in email sending programs.

Of course there are situations where an individual or a company way legitimately want to use their own private email "Sending Server". If their IP address is listed on the SpamHaus PBL blacklist then to resolve the problem they simply need to contact Spamhaus to arrange for the IP address to be removed from the blacklist. It is a simply and quick process.

The bottom line:
If someone can't send you email because their ISP's sending server, or their IP address, is listed on the Spamhaus XBL, SBL or PBL blacklists then it is their responsibility to deal with it, either through their ISP or directly with Spamhaus in the case of PBL listings. There is absolutely no good reason for any email "Receiving Server" to accept a message whose origin is an IP address that is listed on any of the Spamhaus blacklists.

 

If the person sending you email is receiving a delivery failure notice with an error message containing a message that says your mailbox is full:

Your mailbox is full of email. All mailboxes on our server will store a finite amount of email. The exact nature of this limit depends on your account. Typically it will allow you to store up to 20Mb of email before rejecting anything further.

To resolve this issue please make sure you download all your email to your own computer regularly. You should not store your email on the mailboxes on our servers unless you have good reason to, and are willing to accept that email is not backed up and therefore that any messages stored in this way could be totally lost in the event of a server failure.

 

If the person sending you email is receiving a delivery failure notice with an error message not mentioned here:
There are a number of other errors that may occur during the process of sending and delivering an email. Most of these are trivial, for example "Mailbox does not exist", or words to that effect, which means they have misspelled the email address.

In some cases the error is more complex, however, and may be difficult for the person sending the email to understand. In such cases, if you would like us to try to help, we will need to know the contents of the delivery failure message.

Here is an example of a typical delivery failure notification message:

Your message did not reach some or all of the intended recipients. Subject: [subject of your message] Sent: [date and time you sent the message] The following recipient(s) cannot be reached: [email address you tried to send a message to] on [date and time] Refused. [error message].

The exact working and layout of such messages will differ, but the basics will always be the same -- in particular there will always be an error message of some kind which explains what the problem is, though it may use technical terms which may not be easy to understand.

In order to help get to the bottom of the problem, we need to know exactly which email address they were trying to send the message to, the date and time they tried, along with the actual error message.

Without this information we will be unable to provide any assistance - it would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack, where the haystack was the size of the entire planet Earth and the needle was the size of a grain of sand.

 

I'm receiving too much spam. Help!

You can control the level of spam filtering that applies to an individual mailbox or to a domain as a whole using SpamGuardian. Please visit the SpamGuardian help pages for more information.

Please note that SpamGuardian cannot be enabled on email addresses that redirect email to addresses that are not hosted on our servers (i.e. if you have you@yourdomain.com redirected to you@aol.com or you@yoursubdomain.freeserve.co.uk or similar than messages will not be processed by SpamGuardian)

Advanced Anti-spam Option:
If you still receive too much spam despite making full use of the facilities provider by our default SpamGuardian service then you may wish to subscribe to our more aggressive Advanced Anti-spam service.

The Advanced Anti-spam service is a premium option and costs £10 + VAT extra per month. It adds the following features to the standard SpamGuardian facility:

• Backup email server in the event of the main server failing.
• Default spam probability drop score of "8" (rather than "12") with legitimate senders who send you email that have a spam probability score of more than 8 getting a "delivery failure" message explaining that their email was rejected due to it being treated as spam (as opposed to the message simply vanishing into thin air).
• Sophisticated "Greylisting" function to help prevent spam originating from botnets, Trojans and dedicated spam-sending programs from being delivered to your mailbox.
• Advanced Optical Character Recognition facilities that attempt to "read" any text that is contained in images that form part of an email. This helps combat the common spammer technique of disguising spam messages in the form of a graphic (which normal anti-spam filters can't read - they can only read text).
• PDF Spam detector that attempts to read spam contained within PDF documents
• Additional virus scanning and spam processing engines.
• "Phishing" message filter.
• SORBS and SpamCop blacklists added to the default Spamhaus blacklist.
• More frequently updated SpamAssassin anti-spam rules.

Please note:
Due to its relatively aggressive nature, from time to time (or even more frequently) the Advanced Anti-spam system may block legitimate senders from sending you email. Having said that, in our tests the Advanced Anti-spam service was able to block more than 95% of all spam and did not block any legitimate senders. Your experience may well be different, however, which is why we need to emphasise the possibility of legitimate emails being blocked when using the Advanced Anti-spam system.

Please contact the sales department if you would like to subscribe to the Advanced Anti-spam service or to arrange for a free trial.

Special Offer: Get two months Advanced Anti-spam for free!
Quote reference "12 for 10" when ordering to get two months free Advanced Anti-spam service when subscribing for a 12 month period. This offer only applies to customers paying for a year's service in advance - it is not available to customers wishing to pay monthly.

 

SpamArrest:
For a less sophisticated but still very effective additional anti-spam solution you should consider SpamArrest (www.spamarrest.com). We use this system on our sales@ and info@ email addresses. It works on a "challenge-reponse" system and is very effective, but does require people who want to send you email to prove they are humans and not spam-sending automata before their messages are allowed to get through to your mailbox. You will also have to make adjustments to your email program's settings, though this can be done automatically for you if you use certain email programs.