Step 1 – Find your email server
- outgoing - mail.yourdomain.com
- incoming - mail.yourdomain.com
In the examples above just replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name.
When you set up the first e-mail address under a domain (that is configured to be hosted with us) our system automatically creates the necessary hostnames and MX records that are required to process e-mail for that domain.
Note: If mail.yourdomain.com does not work, an alternative is to use servername.mail.dreamhost.com. You can always check what your mail service is by going to your panel and clicking on Account Status in the upper right-hand corner. Be aware that if you use servername.mail.dreamhost.com rather than mail.yourdomain.com, if your mail server is changed, your mail will break until you change the server name.
Step 2 – Setting up a new account in Mail
Now setup the mail account in Mail.
Open Mail, go to the menu and select File -> Add Account…
This will open the account creation assistant.
General Information
- Account Type: IMAP
- Account Description: <Some unique description for the account – can be the email address>
- Full Name: <Your full name>
- Email Address: <Your dreamhost email address>
Click Continue
Incoming Mail Server
- Incoming Mail Server: servername.mail.dreamhost.com, where servername is the server name you found in Step 1.
- User Name: <Your dreamhost email address>
- Password: <Your dreamhost email password>
Click Continue
Outgoing Mail Server
- Outgoing Mail Server: servername.mail.dreamhost.com
- Use Authentication: Yes
- User Name: <Your dreamhost email address>
- Password: <Your dreamhost email password>
Click Continue
Account Summary
Review the account settings you have selected.
Click Continue
Conclusion
Import mail if desired.
Click Done
Step 3 – Modifying new account in Mail
In Mail, go to the menu and select Mail -> Preferences…
Go to the section called Accounts
Account Information
You should start in the Account Information area.
Click the Server Settings… button to edit the Outgoing Mail Server settings
- On Mac OS X 10.5, select Edit Server List … from the Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP) drop-down list. Then select you Dreamhost mail server from the list and click the Advanced tab to get a view similar to the following screen shot.
- Change the Server port to 465
- Depending on your ISP, you may need to use a different port. Try port 587.
- Check the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) option
- You may need to re-enter your dreamhost email password
Click OK
Mailbox Behaviors
Now continue to the Mailbox Behaviors area.
Adjust settings here to your liking.
Storing everything on the server will use more space, however it will keep your email all in one place, you will need to purge your junk and trash frequently to keep within any quotas you have imposed on your account.
The instructions continue below under the assumption that you are storing everything on the server.
Advanced
Now continue to the Advanced area.
- Check the Automatically synchronize changed mailboxes option
- Check the Use SSL option – this should change Port to 993
Later in these instructions, we will change the IMAP Path Prefix setting. Do not do this now, it must be done after we create the account sub-folders.
Confirm Changes
Close the preferences window, you will be asked to confirm the changes.
Click Save
Step 4 – Setup account mailboxes
Now you will need to create the “Sent”, “Drafts”, “Junk” and “Trash” mailboxes on the server.
After closing the preferences window you should have returned to a standard Mail viewer window.
In the viewer window, right-click or control-click on the Inbox item in the left-hand column. In the resulting menu select New Mailbox…
- Do not change Location
- Type “Sent” into the Name field
Click OK
The new mailbox will appear underneath the Inbox, if it does not appear, it may be hidden, try clicking the small triangle to the left of the Inbox to reveal it.
Click on the new mailbox once and then select Mailbox -> Use This Mailbox For -> Sent from the main menu.
The mailbox will move from its current location and instead appear with a special icon in the left-hand column of the viewer window.
Repeat these steps for the “Drafts”, “Junk” and “Trash” mailboxes.
Step 5 (optional) – Set correct IMAP Path Prefix
- On Mac OS X 10.5, Mail.app will attempt to guess and set the IMAP prefix and may or may not offer a dialog box to confirm this change.
This step will move your sub-mailboxes under the Inbox to their proper place under a new “globe” icon named after your account. You may be happy with them where they are, in which case you can skip this final step.
In Mail, go to the menu and select Mail -> Preferences…
Go to the section called Accounts and then go to the area called Advanced
- Set IMAP Path Prefix to “INBOX” (in capital letters, without the quotation marks)
Close the preferences window and confirm the change.
The mailboxes under your Inbox will momentarily dissappear and then reappear under a new icon in the left-hand column of the viewer window.
You have now finished the full setup process.
Step 6 – (optional) Set up trust for the SSL certificate
When connecting to a DreamHost mail account with SSL, Mail will issue a warning because the root certificate’s domain name won’t match your mail server’s domain name. To fix this problem, you can tell Mail to ignore the discrepancy. There are two methods to do so.
Easy Method
These instructions have been verified for Mac OS X 10.5.4.
- Launch Mail and access your email account.
- You should get a message from Mail saying “Mail can’t verify the identity of…”
- Click Show Certificate
- Check the box marked “Always trust *.mail.dreamhost.com”
- Click Connect
At this point, the warning should go away the next time you launch Mail. If not, quit Mail and follow these steps:
- Open Keychain Access
- Locate the certificate in the keychain (search for “dream”)
- Double-click the certificate
- Expand the “Trust” settings
- Change the “When using this certificate” option to “Always Trust”
- Quit Keychain Access
- Launch Mail
The warning message should no longer appear.
Manual Method
If the Easy Method does not work for you, you can install the New Dream Network root certificate manually.
In Safari, hold down the control key while clicking the link below. From the contextual menu that appears, select “Save Linked File to the Desktop” (or similar option based on your preferred download location).
https://dreamhost.com/ca/ndn.ca.crt
Locate the file on your Desktop or preferred download location. The file should be named ndn.ca.crt.txt
Rename it to ndn.ca.crt you will probably receive a warning asking you to confirm the change, click “Use .crt”.
The resulting file will appear as a blank icon.
Double-click on the renamed file. This will launch the Keychain Access application which will immediately present you with a dialog box.
- For Keychain choose X509Anchors from the dropdown list
- In Mac OS X 10.5, X509Anchors will sometimes not show up. in this case, use “login” (It will show up if migrated from a tiger install but attempts to install a certificate to it will result in the certificate being installed to “System”).
Click OK
If prompted whether to trust the certificate, choose Always Trust. You will then be asked to authenticate to complete the installation. You need to have administrator privileges to install the certificate.
After authenticating, you can quit Keychain Access.
