| You can now send and receive your AOL® or AIM® e-mail using any e-mail program as long as it supports either the Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) or the Post Office Protocol (POP). You get all the great features that AOL or AIM e-mail has to offer and the flexibility to read and send e-mail via a third-party e-mail client. FAQs
What are IMAP and POP3?
What are the requirements for my e-mail program to be able to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
How do I set up my e-mail application to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
What are the limitations of using other e-mail applications to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
Why are my e-mails getting deleted after configuring my e-mail application?
What are IMAP and POP3?
IMAP and POP3 (Post Office Protocol version 3) are the widely used standards for reading e-mail. IMAP allows you to read your e-mail directly from the remote e-mail server, and the e-mail will remain accessible on the e-mail server even if you use a different computer to access it later. POP3 requires you to download your e-mail to your computer before you can read it, and the e-mail is deleted from the e-mail server as soon as it is downloaded; therefore, the only copy of your e-mail is on the computer used to read it.
What are the requirements for my e-mail program to be able to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
AOL or AIM e-mail can be sent and received using other e-mail applications by setting up a connection to AOL's or AIM's e-mail servers. Setting up access to the servers is simple, and the settings are similar for most e-mail applications.
Your e-mail application must support either POP or IMAP as the incoming e-mail server, and authenticated Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) as the outgoing e-mail server. The application must also allow you to change the outgoing (SMTP) e-mail server.
Note: SMTP is the major standard for sending e-mails on the Internet. Using an authenticated SMTP server means that to send an e-mail, you must log in to the SMTP server with a user name and password. The user name and password used for sending AOL or AIM e-mail are your AOL or AIM screen name and password.
How do I set up my e-mail application to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
Setting up access to the AOL or AIM Mail servers is simple, and the settings are similar for most e-mail applications.
The basic information that you need to set up using IMAP and POP3 is as follows:
- Your e-mail address is screenname@aol.com or screenname@aim.com.
- Be sure to include the @aol.com or @aim.com suffix.
- The incoming mail (POP) server address is imap.aol.com and imap.aim.com for IMAP, and pop.aol.com or pop.aim.com for POP3.
- Check the box for leaving messages on the server.
- The outgoing mail (SMTP) server address is smtp.aol.com or smtp.aim.com, port: 587.
- Your user name is your AOL or AIM screen name.
- Your password is your AOL or AIM password.
If you need more assistance configuring your e-mail software, check the program Help files or visit the manufacturer's Web site. You should be able to find the assistance you need.
Back to FAQs
What are the limitations of using other e-mail applications to send/receive AOL or AIM e-mails?
The following AOL or AIM e-mail features are not available with other e-mail applications:
- E-mail marked for deletion is retained in the original folder, and then it is deleted by the AOL or AIM IMAP servers once daily. Some applications show deleted e-mail in the original folder with the message flagged for deletion (such as Outlook® or Eudora®), while other applications do not show these e-mails.
- You will not be able to check the status of a sent message or retrieve unopened e-mail from AOL or AIM members.
- The Report Spam button is not available on IMAP. To report messages as spam, move them to your Spam folder.
- AOL or AIM IMAP servers do not allow folders to be created or deleted in the root folder. You will see the Inbox, Sent Items, Saved, Spam, and Voicemail folders. The Voicemail folder cannot be accessed unless you subscribe to the AOL® Voicemail product. For more information on AOL Voicemail, go to http://www.voice.aol.com/.
- You cannot manually add messages to the Inbox or Sent Items folders. Messages will only be added to these folders when an e-mail is received or sent by the AOL or AIM IMAP server.
Why are my e-mails getting deleted after configuring my e-mail application?
If your e-mails are getting deleted after configuring your e-mail application, please re-configure your e-mail application and ensure that the box for leaving messages on the server is checked.
Back to Top
| 
