Hello Everyone, 

Recently I have received many questions about how to setup email on a mobile phone. 

The following is my general answer; no doubt some will find it elementary while others will find it daunting.  In either case, please keep in mind that setting up an email account can be a very, if not difficult to implement, then challenging task to master for many people. 

SCENARIO
I sit in my comfortable office chair and power on my AT&T Wireless Samsung Blackjack 2 Smart Phone running Windows Mobile 6.0 Standard Edition with Mobile Speak for Smart Phones installed.  Within less than two minutes of powering on the device, I can see (or hear) in one glance from the phone’s Home screen that I have two new voice mail messages, three new text messages, four new messages in my Code Factory email account, eight new messages in my gMail email account, thirty-six new messages in my university email account, seventeen new email messages in my Candle Shore email account and twenty new messages in my Yahoo email account.

MARK’S SETUP
Generally speaking I use four devices to access my email accounts on a regular basis.  These devices include my home PC Desktop computer with MS Outlook 2002, my notebook PC with MS Outlook 2003, my Samsung Blackjack II Smart Phone with a pocket email client, and a public library computer using a standard web browser.

I want you to understand that regardless of which device I use to access my email account or accounts, as the case may be, each device will reflect the actions taken on any other device I may have previously used to access the email.  That is, if I send an email from my notebook computer, I can subsequently open a web browser from any public computer and see the message I sent in the Sent Mail folder in my email account.  Further, if I reply to an email message on my mobile phone, that reply will be reflected on the other three devices described above.  If I read a message on my mobile phone, when I next access my email account from my Desktop PC, the message will appear as already having been read.  Finally, if I begin an email on my mobile phone but get a call and, thus stop editing, the message will automatically be saved in the draft folder and I can sit down at the library computer, open its web browser, and continue working on the message from exactly where I left off.

How is this done?  It is really quite simple once you forget the details and focus on the goal; said goal being to have the most access with the least amount of effort. 

TWO TYPES OF EMAIL ACCESS
Generally, there are two ways you can access your email Inbox.  Simply put, you can access your email via an email client such as MS Outlook or via a web browser such as Internet Explorer. 

At the time of this writing, an email client is considered much more feature-rich than web based email access through a web browser, especially when using a screen reader such as Code Factory’s Mobile Speak or Freedom Scientific’s Jaws for Windows.  However, an email client lives on one computer, only.  So, if I wish to use MS Outlook on three computers, I would have to purchase three licenses of Outlook and configure them separately.  The major advantage of accessing email through a web browser is that, since virtually all computers have web browsers, you can access your email from any computer. 

Honestly, and this is just my opinion, I strongly recommend to those using screen readers to avoid web based email access via a web browser unless absolutely necessary.  Having said that, should you choose to access your email through a web browser, when finished, please remember to log out of your email account and close any open instances of the browser before leaving the computer. 

As I am sure you can tell, I definitely hate accessing my email through web browsers and now, thanks to my beautiful, wonderful, wireless phone with Mobile Speak, I no longer have to do so.  But I digress.  Back to our story:  (Smile)

Are you still with me?  If not, stop and take time to re-read what you just re-read, again.  (Smile) 

OK to continue? 

TYPES OF EMAIL SERVERS
Email messages are stored on email servers.  Generally speaking, there are three types of email servers which include MS Exchange, POP, and iMAP. 

This document will not discuss MS Exchange as it is primarily used for corporate/business email systems.  More often than not, Exchange servers are configured by I.T. professionals.  This, of course, means that we, nonprofessional folk that is, are left with just two types of email servers to consider, POP and iMAP. 

The scenario I described earlier in this article was made possible by the use of an iMAP server.  You guessed it, I strongly recommend that, when given a choice, you access any and all of your email accounts via an iMAP server.  I know that some of you may be wondering, so let me answer the question before you ask; yes, it is possible and quite simple to convert a POP account into an iMAP account assuming that your email provider offers iMAP access. 

Believe it or not, some email services such as HotMail and Live.com do not currently offer either POP or iMAP access.

“But Mark, what is the difference between POP and IMAP?”

I am so glad you asked. (Smile)
 
There are two basic ways to configure an email client such as Eudora, Entourage or MS Outlook in order to access your email account.  One way of doing this is to use a POP (POP3: Post Office Protocol) and the other is to use iMAP (iMAP4: Internet Message Access Protocol). 

NOTE 1:
Do not confuse iMAP with IMP.  IMP stands for Internet Messaging Program; and it is the web application used to read your email from a web browser, more commonly referred to as WebMail.  While there is a certain relationship between IMP and iMAP, they are entirely different animals and the similarity of the acronyms is completely incidental.

If POP is used, all of your email messages are transferred (downloaded) from the email server to your local computer and, consequently, stored on its hard drive.  While most email clients have an option to keep a copy of the messages on the server for x number of days, sooner or later, the messages will be removed from the server.

Furthermore, with POP, your sent emails are kept locally on your hard drive which leads to the familiar and annoying situation where you have different sent emails on each computer that you use to access your email account, home, office, work, etc.  Additionally, the local file used by your email program to store messages is application specific as there is no widely accepted standard email file format.

So, if you ever decide to use a different email client application, you will most likely find it necessary to export/import the emails from one program to another which is often painfully slow or doesn’t work very well at all.  In some cases, when switching between different email clients or operating systems, it may be altogether impossible.

If iMAP is used instead of POP, all of your email messages are stored on your service provider’s central server and are never removed unless you choose to remove them.  In most cases your email application creates a local cache (copy) of messages on your hard drive to speed up the opening of emails but the originals are not touched and, in fact, are regularly backed up for safe keeping.

Also, with iMAP, and this is the big one boys and girls, (Smile) your Draft and Sent Mail folders are automatically copied (uploaded) to the iMAP server.  Because of this, you will always see the exact same contents in any iMAP folder, on your account, regardless of which email client you use, provided the client is configured for iMAP access.

NOTE 2:
Since iMAP is an internet standard and emails are stored on the iMAP server, it is easy to switch between email programs and operating systems.  You can move or setup additional iMAP accounts between any client on Windows, Linux, or the Mac with equal ease and within minutes you will see all your emails even if you don’t have access to your previous program or the other computer.  There is no need to copy any files between computers; all you need do is just configure a few settings.

ACCESSING EMAIL ON YOUR WIRELESS DEVICE, AN EXPLANATION FROM GOOGLE:
The following explanation was taken, in part, from the Google website:

If you access gMail via a phone or email client using POP, you may be frustrated by the fact that any action you take, such as reading, sorting or deleting, doesn’t sync with your gMail account. 

You may have read and sorted all your new mail on your phone, for example, but when you log back into gMail using a browser, you’re presented with a full Inbox of unread messages that you have to re-read and re-organize all over again. What you may not realize is that you have another option that solves these problems: iMAP.

It can be a little confusing to learn about different ways to get email on your phone or in an email client such as Thunderbird or Outlook, but this breakdown of the key differences between POP and iMAP should help you decide which way to go.

There are two ways your wireless devices and email clients can communicate with an iMAP server:

1.
A one-way communication path (POP). Your device asks for data and pulls it from the servers; but that’s it. Things you do on your device have no effect on the items stored on the server. If you read a message on your phone, then log in to gMail, you will see that same message marked as unread. It may start to feel like Groundhog Day or you may begin to think you’re in the Twilight Zone.

2.
A two-way communication path (iMAP).  Unlike POP, your devices talk back to the server and automatically synchronize your changes.  When you sign into your gMail account with either a web browser or email client, actions you take on either your computer or wireless device (like moving an important email to a folder named Very Important) will be reflected on the iMAP server.  This all happens automatically once you set up iMAP, so you don’t have to read or sort all your mail twice. This is really helpful when accessing gMail from multiple devices.

WHERE TO BEGIN:
Before attempting to setup iMAP access on either your mobile device or computer, you must obtain what is commonly referred to as the Server Settings for your email provider.  In the case of gMail, Yahoo, AOL, and many, many others, this can be found on the web or by simply calling the provider’s technical support hotline.

Even though you may not understand the meaning of the server setting parameters, take care in copying them down exactly as given to you for mistyping even a single character can cause the entire system to fail. 

NOTE 3:
On many mobile devices, when setting up a new email account, there is an option to let the phone attempt to acquire the server settings for you.  Generally, this is not recommended.  So, if you see this option, uncheck its checkbox before proceeding. 

NOTE 4:
Many mobile phone users regularly synchronize their Contacts, Notes, Tasks, and Calendar items between their wireless device and a computer using software such as MS ActiveSync or Mobile Center.  It is possible to configure this software to synchronize email items as well but doing so is well beyond the scope of this document and I highly recommend against it, especially for newbies.    

CONCLUSION:
Now, I know there are some geeks out there who have an almost uncontrollable urge to punch proverbial holes in what I have just written.  Let me save you the trouble by saying “Yes,” there are exceptions to every rule and for some, such as those who do not have a wireless data plan on their wireless device or those who access email on their computers via a dial-up connection,  for whom POP would be a better solution.  However, generally speaking, the information in this article is valid and I stand by it. 

Finally, do not expect to retain all of the information in this article at first glance.  It will take time to absorb it all and you may need assistance the first couple of times you setup a new email account.  If so, that’s OK.  The main point here is to not become discouraged if at first you do not succeed.  All that matters is that you keep trying and keep tweaking the client settings until you get them right.

As I always say, the reward is not in the destination but, rather, in the journey.

Good Luck,

Most Sincerely,

Mark