Can't Set up Mail in Windows 10

[#1]

Trying to set up my new computer with Windows 10 and wanted to set up and link Windows 10 MAIL.   Can anyone tell me what you enter in 'Name' box.    It won't accept anything I have tried to put in.  Tried the name I log into plusnet with - tried the first part of my email address (lizian)  Tried my full name - all to no avail.  Has anyone else had success?

[#2]

@LizMac42 

If you mean the user name box, you need to enter the full "address" of the mailbox you want to Mail to access, i.e, enter something along the lines of ????@yourplusnetusername.plus.com

[#3]

Thank you for reply jgb

Yes I put that in the box and clicked the 'save'  but just get   'nothing has arrived yet'  perhaps I have to wait for the next email to arrive but this one certainly wasn't sent through?

[#4]

@LizMac42 

Have you investigated the settings in "Change mailbox sync settings" in Manage accounts > account settings? In the top box on that page you can change the frequency of Mail polling your Plusnet email account to download emails.

[#5]

Yes - done that and clicked on send as they arrive and send emails from last 2 weeks and then ticked all the sync option below  -  I think it is the name box that is the problem but phoned plusnet and they do not support email questions but sent me an email   which included: "Name:  Account User Name or if using an additional mailbox   user name+mailbox name"  but would imagine these two are the same????

[#6]

@LizMac42 

For Mail, the account name box is simply the email address of the account. If you have additional accounts (that are not aliases of another Plusnet email account - mail to those those will be included in the "parent" account mail downloads) then you should set each of those up as a separate account in Mail.

e.g. if you main email account is username@username.plus.com and you have created another account bob@username.plus .com you would set up two accounts in Mail. In Mail the account name of the first would be username@username.plus.com; the account name of the second would be simply bob@username.plus.com.

The instructions that Plusnet have supplied apply, I think, to accessing accounts via their webmail service. Using the above examples, to access the main account, you would use username as the entry in the username box in the Plusnet Welcome to Webmail page; to access the second account you would use username+bob. 

Hope that helps. Sorry, if I am telling you things you already know. 

[#7]

Thanks for your post @LizMac42 

I'm sorry to see you're having issues setting up your mail in Windows 10.

Could you post up a few screenshots to illustrate what's happening? We should then be able to advise further. I'm also happy to call you back if it's easier and use what's known as remote support, with this I'd be able to log into your computer remotely while we're on the phone and see if I can sort this out for you first hand.

[#8]

Have you previously set up the email address using Manage My Mail in the Plusnet user portal?

Can you access the email box using webmail?

We’ve seen new users attempting to access mailboxes which do not yet exist!!

[#9]

Yes I had a Windows Live Mail client linked to my plusnet account and yes I can access my webmail successfully using the PlusNet website.

[#10]

Hi Liz,

Here is a walk through of setting up Mail (as bundled with Win 10 and called "outlook") to work with Plusnet...

1. Settings (cog at bottom of left pane)
2. Manage account
3. + Add account
4.  Scroll to bottom (trust me there is no scroll bar!) select the 'hidden' Advance setup
5. Internet email
6. Email address: you@youraccount.plus.com
7. User name:
   1. if "you" is the default mail box then use youraccount
   2. if "you" is a secondary mail box then use youraccount+you
8. Password:
   1. The password for "youraccount"
   2. The password assigned to the mailbox "you"
9. Account Name: How you want the account named in the MAIL program eg "Liz on Plusnet"
10. Send using name: The friendly name you want your emails to identified by eg "Gorgeous Liz"
11. Incoming server: imap.plus.net
12. Account type: IMAP4
13. Outgoing (SMTP) server: relay.plus.net
14. Tick options - all ticked
15. Click Sign in

You should see a message you@youraccount.plus.net has been set up successfully.

On the left hand pane you should now see under Accounts "Account name" (as in 9 above) with the email address (6 above below).

Note that I advise to set this up as IMAP in the anticipation that you might wish to access the mailbox on different devices (a phone / tablet / Webmail) as well as your computer.

HOWEVER Win 10 "outlook" Mail is the worst and the most inflexible of the "outlook" products - it does exactly what it wants to with no options to configure the use of IMAP server folders.  It will create its own "sent Items" and "Deleted Items" folders on the server … even if the same already exists.  If you MUST use this product, use it first to create a mail item sent to yourself, save it (that creates the DRAFTS folder), send it (that creates SENT ITEMS), read it and delete it (that creates DELETED ITEMS).

After that when you create IMAP accounts on other IMAP clients they will usually use the pre-existing folders.  It is though much easier to use a better email client.  Outlook 2016 (or 2019) is excellent, but there are others.

HTH?

[#11]

Thanks for this information Townman  - followed the instructions as well as I could (though the variety of names one holds with a PlusNet account is very confusing)  Got to the end and clicked on 'Done' and was informed that the account had been made successfully.   Tried the Mail account - was informed 'nothing has been found'.   Did a restart and entered my email address at the top - again - nothing has been found.

Think I will give up on this now - too difficult to set up - will have to put up with my Thunderbird client, which I do not like very much but at least I managed to set it up.

Thanks again from Liz

[#12]

To be frank if you cannot obtain use of the proper MS Outlook client (as shipped with Office 365) Thunderbird is a better solution than the Win10 Mail version of "outlook".  It might look pretty but is somewhat ugly under the skin.  In an attempt to keep things simple it hides far too much and as you have found can be somewhat unfriendly when things do not work.

I do not like Thunderbird either, however given the choice of Thunderbird over Win10 mail, I would chose the Round Cube Webmail interface!!

Did you try clicking the refresh button?  I found that I had to manually kick the download - I also sought not to add more complexity to the instructions by directing you to the sync settings - the default refresh interval is 2 hours!

The old Outlook Express was (arguably still is) a much better email client.  Indeed not until Outlook 2013 did the "professional" version of MS' email client surpass OLE.  The big upside of Outlook 2016/19 is the integrated diary and contacts list, which can be configured to fully sync with most smart phones.

[#13]

Rereading the thread...

"Yes I had a Windows Live Mail client linked to my plusnet account and yes I can access my webmail successfully using the PlusNet website"

If you like WLM (It was a great product) then why not stick with it? https://windowsreport.com/windows-live-mail-windows-10/

[#14]

Townman - I think you are right - I will stay with the Thunderbird -  I used Windows Live Mail before and we liked it - such a shame that Windows 10 is no longer supporting it.   They always seem to get rid of the things people liked!!

Thanks again

[#15]

Hi Liz,

See the link in the previous reply - it advises on how to set up WLM on Win10.