{"id":57009,"date":"2020-09-03T17:23:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-03T22:23:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.cpanel.com\/?p=57009"},"modified":"2020-09-03T17:23:32","modified_gmt":"2020-09-03T22:23:32","slug":"setting-up-and-troubleshooting-smtp-in-cpanel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devel.www.cpanel.net\/blog\/tips-and-tricks\/setting-up-and-troubleshooting-smtp-in-cpanel\/","title":{"rendered":"Setting Up and Troubleshooting SMTP in cPanel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
When you host your email on your domain with an SMTP server, you are in control. You can choose an email address to suit your business or personal brand. All the data is stored privately on a server or hosting account only you can access. If you want to move to a different hosting provider, there’s nothing to stop you because you aren’t locked-in to a hosted service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So why don’t more people host their own email? It\u2019s often because setting up an email server without help is fiendishly complicated. You have to learn all about SMTP, IMAP, Exim, mail routing, and more. However, if you use cPanel & WHM, you will have the tools you need to quickly set up and connect to email accounts over SMTP. For most cPanel users, sending mail via their server is as simple as creating an email account and configuring their favorite app.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In this article, we’re going to show you how to do just that. We’ll walk you through the process of setting up an email account and show you how to configure your apps with cPanel’s SMTP settings. We’ll also take a look at some of the most common errors and how to fix them. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
SMTP is the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, the communication protocol that applications use to send email over the internet to servers. When you hit \u201csend\u201d in your email app\u2014whether it\u2019s Apple Mail\u00ae, MicrosoftOutlook\u00ae, Thunderbird\u00ae, or any other email client\u2014it contacts a server, authenticates, and attempts to deliver the contents of its outbox. The server the app sends mail to is called the outgoing mail server, and the software it connects to is called a mail transfer agent (MTA). <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The MTA on the server takes the messages from the app, puts them in a queue, and then sends them to the recipient\u2019s MTA, which delivers it to their inbox. cPanel has an integrated mail transfer agent called Exim, and, like all MTAs, it uses SMTP to communicate with mail clients and other MTAs. That\u2019s why MTAs are sometimes called SMTP servers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the most part, cPanel users don\u2019t have to configure Exim or worry about SMTP\u2019s intricacies because cPanel takes care of the nitty-gritty details. However, you may have to tweak configuration settings if you or your users experience email errors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we get to troubleshooting, let\u2019s take a look at the basics of setting up an email account on your server and configuring your email client to send messages to the MTA over SMTP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The cPanel SMTP set-up process involves two steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First, let\u2019s create a new email account. In cPanel, navigate to the Email Accounts <\/em>interface, which you will find in the main page menu\u2019s Email<\/em> section. <\/p>\n\n\n\n