Getting and Sending ATT Email on Your iPhone
This took absolutely forever to figure out and it’s been working for me and my wife for almost two weeks now. I did numerous of Google searches, encounter quite a number of forum posts by people who were also unable to send emails from their ATT email accounts also. There were a few solutions that worked for some, but not others, such as using cwmx.com in the outgoing SMTP settings on the iPhone. Turns out, the solution is quite easy if you actually READ the directions. Here’s the step by step directions from start to finish. This works BOTH on the Edge network and on Wi-Fi.
- On the iPhone, go to Settings > Mail.
- Select Add Account…
- Select Other (At the time of this writing the built in Y! Mail option doesn’t allow for sending of emails).
- Select POP (Yahoo no longer offers IMAP).
- Enter information for Name, Address, and Description.
- For Incoming Mail Server, Host Name: pop.att.yahoo.com, User Name: youremail@att.net, Password: whatever it might be.
- For Outgoing Mail Server, Host Name: smtp.att.yahoo.com, User Name: youremail@att.net, Password: whatever it might be.
- Select Advanced.
- Under Incoming Settings, make sure Use SSL is on, Authentication is Password, and Server Port is 995.
- Under Outgoing Settings, make sure Use SSL is on, Authentication is Password, and Server Port is 465.
Go to Mail and try sending and receiving emails.
January 17th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
Thanks! I was on the phone with apple for over an hour on this problem. Found this in 15min. I did try many of the other solutions but, this one works for me.
January 17th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
DK,
Glad to hear that you found the solution! This took me awhile to figure out also. The secret is the outgoing server. For some reason, the iPhone defaults to port 587 whereas ATT/Yahoo/SBCGlobal/etc is set for 465. Something so small, but yet such a big headache.
Let me know in the coming weeks if it still works. So far for me and my wife, it’s still working strong for us.
January 21st, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Richard-
YOU ARE A GODSEND! Reading your guidelines, it took less than 3 minutes to figure out the problem that has plagued the phone for over a week.
Thanks a bunch!
January 21st, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Jeffrey,
Glad these directions worked out great for you! Let me know how it continues to work out!
March 13th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Thanks for this info.
I found this same info on the at&t site as well but it didn’t work. Not because the info was bad but because I was trying to change the settings on an existing account to the settings listed above.
After about 1 bajillion times of trying this I deleted the existing account on my iPhone and recreated a new one and this time the settings worked flawlessly.
So if it is not working for you, I highly recommend deleting the account and creating a new one.
Hopefully this will save some one some headaches.
March 13th, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Actually I think I had to do that on my phone. I kept trying the same thing and it wasn’t working until I deleted and started from scratch. I was attributing it to maybe I was typing something wrong somewhere, but hey, this works too!
Thanks for sharing!
June 10th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
Thanks Lots…
Apple Genius Bar, At&t could not help. But thanks to your article, my email now works fine.
I’ve been 10 days without email on my iphone. Your solution took less than 3 minutes.
You’re the bes!
June 10th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
Maybe someone should point Apple Genius Bar and AT&T to this post
July 29th, 2008 at 7:13 pm
I’m still stuck. I don’t have Yahoo. Do I need to set up an account with Yahoo first? Otherwise I don’t know what Password to use.
July 30th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Mary,
Yes, you have to have a Yahoo or Yahoo affiliate email account first (i.e. ATT, SBCGlobal, etc.).
July 31st, 2008 at 12:30 pm
I just made the above changes and I still can’t send or receive mail on my (orig) iPhone. I have Yahoo AT&T and another account through HostMySite. About 4 days ago, they both just stopped receiving or sending email.
I had downloaded V2.0 for iPhone 2 weeks ago and everything was working just fine. I use a PC and I didn’t do anything with MobileMe. I’d sure appreciate your thoughts.
July 31st, 2008 at 6:03 pm
Try this, delete the AT&T account from your phone. Then do a complete shutdown and start back up and try the directions again.
I partly think that the new version 2.0 software is buggy.
July 31st, 2008 at 10:10 pm
Hmm. I tried that and it did not work. I just tried it with the AT&T/Yahoo account. It tells me that the username or password is incorrect. I checked, and they are correct. Bummer.
August 1st, 2008 at 4:55 am
@Cay - Try this, I had to do this on my wife’s iPhone after the version 2.0 update. Do the Settings > Mail > Add Account. Instead of choosing Other, select the Yahoo button this time. Enter all you AT&T info and save. You might get some error messages, just disregard it. Save the new account. Then go back into the Settings > Mail and select the newly created Yahoo account and edit it. You’ll notice the POP and SMTP are pointing to postoffice.something.or.another, change the POP to pop.att.yahoo.com and SMTP to smtp.att.yahoo.com. Save it and try it.
August 3rd, 2008 at 3:45 pm
I am using attglobal.net account and I can not for the life of me find the solution to getting my email on my iTouch (or iPhone). Can you please let me know how to get my email? thanks!
August 3rd, 2008 at 5:51 pm
I don’t think there is a “attglobal.net” account. It’s either att.net or sbcglobal.net. Have you tried:
August 4th, 2008 at 9:16 am
This still does not work for me, i keep getting an error “the username or password is incorrect” but I’m 100% sure it’s not and when I save it and change setting to the one’s here it says “The connection to the server failed”
any help plz? I have deleted restarted many many times nothing works. I’m on 1.1.4 btw
August 4th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I’ve had that same problem on my wife’s iPhone, but when I went a head and selected Yahoo! as the option, it worked fine. Have you tried that?
August 21st, 2008 at 9:54 am
Using the 3G iphone, how do you send emails outside of your house if your email address is that from the cable provider (brighthouse)& not a yahoo, hotmail, etc email?
August 21st, 2008 at 1:49 pm
The key thing is if the cable provider allows authenticated access from another source. For example, when you are home, you are on BrightHouse network so your authenticated. When you leave your house and you’re on 3G, you’re on ATT’s network and if BrightHouse doesn’t allow for outside access to their SMTP server, then there isn’t anything you can do other than maybe use GMail’s “Access other email” feature. I’m not sure if this link of SMTPs will help you, or if it’s up-to-date or not, but have you tried entering:
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Richard, This post is excellent! Well written and easy to execute.
August 23rd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
@Aaron Price - Glad it’s working for you considering all the issues everyone else has been having as of late.
August 31st, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Got this tip from AT&T Data Support, Delete email acct. Reset network settings on iPhone. After it power cycles, turn off WiFi, and recreate email acct. with the settings Richard Bui posted. Been working smoothly after a month of problems.
August 31st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Awesome! Thanks for sharing the tip!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:47 am
Hi there, you are my last resort.
I would like to purchase an iPhone. I have a Blackberry now, through Verizon. Verizon/Blackberry gave me an email address on the Bberry server, ie:Yourname@vzw.blackberry.net. So, I set up my corporate Groupwise with a Rule to “forward to yourname@vzw.blackberry.net and all of my groupwise email forwarded to my blackberry. Easy enough.
My IT dept. does not support handhelds, obviously….Anyway, ATT does not seem to set one up with an email address that would belong to the device, ie: yourname@iphone.net. And since I can not use Yahoo or Gmail for business, there’s no way around this. Or is there? CSY
September 4th, 2008 at 10:03 am
@Cs - Yes, AT&T doesn’t give you an email address when you get an iPhone or any other smart phones for that matter, only when you get DSL with them.
Here’s one step you can try:
If your work email or the vzw.blackberry.net supports IMAP or POP, you’re in luck.
1. Sign up for GMAIL.
2. Login into GMAIL and go to Settings > Accounts > Add another email address (under “Get Mail From another account”). What this is going to do is let you use GMAIL to get (and send) emails from another email account.
3. Enter your info and follow the directions on the screen.
4. Now setup up GMAIL on your iPhone and you should start receiving emails from your work email.
There maybe some delay in how fast you get your email because it’s not quite Push.
September 5th, 2008 at 1:41 pm
Deleting the account and resetting info did it for me.
Thanks!!!
September 5th, 2008 at 8:32 pm
@Mark Ardoin - Cool! Glad it all worked out for you!
September 19th, 2008 at 5:47 am
Richard, thank you very much. I just got a new iPhone 3G and sending mail was the last issue i had to resolve. I was actually able to change the settings in the original account created when I first synced with iTunes. Without your instructions i would have had to brave AT&T’s tech support. Now on to my wife’s new iPhone.
September 19th, 2008 at 6:58 am
@Ken Montgomery - Thanks Ken! Glad it was of help!
September 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Got my new iPhone setup to access my gmail and now my att mail. Problem I’m having now is I want to leave the mail in the server when I access it w/iPhone. Then, later when I’m home I can download ot to my desktop (Outlook). Got this working with my gmail accounts but not with the Att mail. That mail gets downloaded to the iPhone and wiped from the server (I can’t even find evidence of it in the trash, sent items, or deleted folders.
Any ideas?
September 30th, 2008 at 12:28 pm
Yes. It has to do with the fact that ATT/Yahoo doesn’t offer IMAP any longer. You have to setup GMAIL to fetch your emails from ATT, but make sure you select to leave messages on the server.
September 30th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Richard,
Not sure I get what u mean. U mean that I will have to have att mail “forward” my email to my gmail account and then access that gmail with my iPhone (as an IMAP account so it stays on server)and then by my desktop (as POP3 mail so it is deleted by server)?
October 1st, 2008 at 12:03 am
@DAvid - Login to GMail. Click on Settings (upper right hand corner), select Accounts tab, look for Get mail from other accounts and select Add another email account. Enter this for your POP: pop.att.yahoo.com and make sure you select Leave a copy of retrieved message on the server.
You can also setup GMail so that not only does it retrieve emails from ATT, but you can send emails from GMail as if you were using ATT. That’s what I do with my ATT email account since I’ve come to the conclusion that ATT/Yahoo email sucks.
October 7th, 2008 at 8:34 pm
on my iPhone 3g I am able to retrieve my emails through Gmail (my server is on Cox Communications but they evidently do not allow access from iPhone). All my mail is forwarded to my Gmail account. Replying to or sending an email only works sporadically. For the most part sending does not work. SSL is “on” and server port is “993″. Also, sometimes I won’t be able to pick up my email and will get messages like username and password incorrect, sometimes trying to send results in an imap.smtp.gmail failed message.Any advuce?
October 7th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
Ok. Instead of doing forwarding, have you tried:
The last part of sending, the smtp server should be SMTP.gmail.com and not imap.smtp.gmail.
October 7th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
Thank you for your reply. I discovered from Cox Communications that in order to send out email on my iPhone, the outgoing server is not smtp, it is cwmx.com. That did the trick and now I can receive and send with no problems.
October 8th, 2008 at 5:34 am
Awesome! Glad to hear it!
October 11th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
October 12th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I tried all of your instructions and I have an att.net e-mail (webmail), I even called att, they gave me incoming: spostoffice.isp.att.net 995 and outgoing smailhost.isp.att.net 465 but it STILL didn’t work. Do you have any other suggestions? Thanks.
October 13th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Ok, I got it. I don’t understand why ATT Webmail is SOO hard to set up!!!!! it’s supposed to be fpostoffice.isp.att.net and fmailhost.isp.att.net.. for some reason my incoming is ipostoffice.worldnet.att.net which I’m afraid to change because it already works.. but outgoing cwmx.com works, leaving the server port # out. FINALLY! I found that the best help was with 1-800-MYIPHONE.. apple thru att wasn’t as knowledgeable.
October 14th, 2008 at 6:32 am
I have tried ALL of these to get my @att.net email to be setup on my iPhone 3g, but haven’t had any luck whatsoever! It is truly amazing that an ATT phone cannot setup an ATT account. Any other suggestions?
October 14th, 2008 at 9:05 am
@Steve - I’m glad everything is finally working out! Any issues switching between WiFi and 3G?
@Keith - Yes, there is something funky with AT&T/Yahoo email… I can’t think of anything else. Have you tried completely shutting down the iPhone and starting it back up? Maybe something more drastic like a restore through iTunes?
October 14th, 2008 at 9:53 am
I finally got it to work after playing around with it for the last 3 hours:
address: @worldnet.att.net
incoming host: ipostoffice.worldnet.att.net
username: @worldnet.att.net
outgoing host: imailhost.worldnet.att.net
username: @worldnet.att.net
Use SSL: ON
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 465
Advanced:
Use SSL: ON
Authentication: Password
Server Port: 995
Not sure why this works, but it does…thanks!
October 16th, 2008 at 11:17 am
Hi!
This is this first site I have found that seems to be making some headway into this..
I have the lovely 3G, set up with IMAP Gmail.. I can revive mail all day long but have yet to be able to send anything.. I get “the connection to the outgoing server “smtp.gmail.com” failed”
HELP.. what have I missed..
October 17th, 2008 at 8:31 am
@Keith - Geeez, talk about all the hoops you have to jump through just to make this work!
@Tara - Are you doing a manual setup or using the GMail icon setup? Did you enable SSL for outgoing?
December 25th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Perfect solution!! Mine now works like a dream. Thanks!
January 4th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
My son had this problem with the iphone too. Turns out that we solved it by using the main account email address for the username and password on the outgoing messages page. His email was a sub-account (you can have 4 with worldnet). Nothing else had to be changed from what we had and Richard has here.
January 27th, 2009 at 8:09 am
Richard…
what about the bellsouth.net who was bought by att.
I also did numerous of Google searches, encounter a number of forum posts by people who has bellsouth.net. I tried and the weird thing is that I can send messages whatever I can received…
do you have any tip? thanks
February 4th, 2009 at 9:20 am
@dk - hi, I had read the information from Iphone to set up an email address with att. I am having problem and did followed the direction from this site.. Its not working.. any idea? thanks..
February 4th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
@Janaina - I’m not sure I fully understand your question. Are you able to send and receive? Just send? Just receive?
February 4th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
@Sheryl - Did you see this “extra” step: http://bui4ever.com/2007/12/getting_and_sending_att_email_on_your_iphone/comment-page-2/#comment-7653
February 4th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Hi, Richard..
I am trying to set up an att email acct for my IPhone. I have tried those steps but it not working .. It kept saying it is incorrect etc. What is the exact step that we have to do to set this accout up. ? Thanks..
February 4th, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Also, can you pls send the correct step so I can be sure that I am on the right track.. Thanks, Richard.
February 4th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
@Sheryl - Have you tried deleting and re-entering everything? Have you tried a hard reset. These are the exact steps I used, there’s really nothing else that I can think of.
February 4th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!! Was able to get up and running AFTER your detailed instructions pointing me in the right direction with respect to the settings for outgoing server AND deleting an original account I was trying to change and just starting over…..working perfect now!! Thanks a BUNCH from this non-techie…..my 16 year old is so proud of me!!
February 4th, 2009 at 9:17 pm
@Laurie - I’m glad it worked for you!
February 5th, 2009 at 4:29 am
@Laurie - hi, Laurie, which steps did u use?? Pls send me those step since there are few of them on here .. Thanks..
February 5th, 2009 at 6:09 am
I have the Gmail and aol set up in this IPhone acct. I just need to set up the email att account so I kept getting incorrect etc. Hope I can get this set up sooner. ugh ha. thanks.. Please repeat the set up in case .. thanks..
February 5th, 2009 at 7:41 am
@Sheryl - This is what I would do:
1) Delete ALL the email accounts off of your iPhone.
2) Do a reset by pressing the top button and home button and holding until the phone resets.
3) Follow Steps 1-10 from above
4) After the AT&T account successfully works, add back your AOL and GMAIL.
February 5th, 2009 at 9:31 am
hi thanks!! Now I think I am almost there!! I am able to send out so I tested to see if my other email got this att email, yes it did.. But I am unable to receive incoming mail.. I have pop.att.yahoo.com help ha. thanks..
February 5th, 2009 at 1:08 pm
hope you can be able to answer this to solve the incoming part to receive email.. I guess I am getting excited that I can be able to send out but …..
February 5th, 2009 at 1:35 pm
@Sheryl - Check to make sure that
That is most likely the problem of why you can’t receive.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:57 pm
yes I have that set.. still didn’t receive any msgs.
February 5th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
@Sheryl - Are you on 3G or WiFi?
I can’t possible think of anything else…
February 5th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
was the WiFI should be on or off? I am on 3G
February 5th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
whats about the data roaming? its off what does that do? Yes enable 3G is on..
February 5th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
@Sheryl - Well it shouldn’t matter. I would try resetting the phone again. Maybe even repeat these steps one more time: http://bui4ever.com/2007/12/getting_and_sending_att_email_on_your_iphone/#comment-16020
February 6th, 2009 at 8:12 am
Thanks, Richard.. No luck.. wah. I was so happy that I was able to send out but am having problem with receiving.. Anyone else who had that problem before?? Please let me know so maybe we had that similiar problem. Thanks again..
February 21st, 2009 at 2:28 pm
finally worked for me lol I’m guessing it helped that I just got U-Verse hooked up? lol thx
March 6th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
richard,
got my new iphone after a month of research. switched over from blackberry. much like everyone here, i couldnt get my att.net email accounts to sync up. (these are not the new u-verse emails; ive had them for many years) at&t couldnt help. found your website and tried all the methods listed here to no avail. i finally hit on a combination of solutions that worked for me. the steps are listed below.
iPhone - .att.net
1. Choose Settings in the main window.
2. Choose Mail.
3. Choose Accounts > Add Account.
4. Choose Other.
5. Choose POP and enter the following:
o Name: Enter what you want to appear in the From field in messages you send.
o Address: your_username@att.net
o Description: This will default to what you entered in the previous step. You can change this if desired.
Incoming Mail Server (POP3):
o Host Name: ipostoffice.worldnet.att.net:995
o User Name: your_username@att.net
o Password: Enter your e-mail password.
Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):
o Host Name: imailhost.worldnet.att.net:465
o User Name: your_username@att.net
o Password: Enter your e-mail password.
6. Choose Save. The device will check the settings.
7. Choose Advanced. Check to make sure the following settings are correct:
o Deleted Messages: Choose the option best suited to your needs.
Settings:
o Incoming Uses SSL: Set this to on.
o Outgoing Uses SSL: Set this to on.
o Authentication: Choose Password.
now another problem has occurred, when my iphone gets pushed an email, it logs-off my computer from the same email account. after about 5 min, it allows me to sign my computer back on to the email account. any ideas?
March 11th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Unfortunately the articles steps didn’t work for me after trying on 3G EDGE and two Wi-fi networks with countless attempts at deleting accounts and reseting the iPhone. Eric’s steps above however worked! Thanks so much!
March 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Great info here!
I can’t seem to access my other folders (besides the inbox) on the iphone. What’s the trick?
Thanks,
Will
April 1st, 2009 at 8:51 am
I’ve spent hours trying to get ATT mail on my new iphone — with Apple iphone tech support, Apple Genius bar employees, ATT mobile tech support, ATT DSL tech support, etc. Apple people tell me it’s an ATT problem, and ATT people swear it’s an APPLE problem. This is absurd. I’ve followed these directions but still can’t make it happen. How does one lodge a complaint of this nature?
Mimi
April 27th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Just bought my iPhone and installed a Print application that will allow printing of emails, photos, documents, etc. Since the standard iPhone email application uses the cwmx.com server for SMPT outgoing mail, I thought I would continue using it with this new application; but, it asks me for a Username, Password, SSL, and port for the cwmx.com server. I can’t find in the iPhone what values these items have been set for in the standard iPhone mail application. Does anyone know where these are listed?
May 4th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Thank you so much. Your post worked perfectly.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am
eric is the man