Baffled by BT Email

[Calmaria]

Hi there

I recently joined BT and am having problems understanding how the email works. When my BT account was created the BTID was a Gmail address, and I can use that to login to MyBT. I set up a btinternet.com email address with password and set it as my favourite mailbox. Now if I click on [Go to favourite Mailbox] it logs me into email, which is fine. From the instructions, it seems to imply that I can login directly to BT Mail using that email address & password, but the web client says the password is not recognised. If I login with the BTID, then I can get to email. I've tried creating a new password but that doesn't work either.

I want to set Outlook to collect my BT email but because the favourite mailbox login doesn't work directly, Outlook just says the credentials are invalid. I can't use the BTID ones because Outlook then automatically sets up the Gmail account, which is not the BT one.

I've had a look in the various messages here but can't see a similar issue being reported. When I went online to BT chat they just said there is currently an issue with the client login, but I'm not sure that's what's going on here because webmail login with the favourite credentials doesn't work either, only via BTID. Am I being thick? What am I missing here?

[licquorice]

First and foremost I'm baffled as to why you would want a BTinternet email address in the first place when it is not necessary.

I don't think anybody understands the relationship between BTID and email , it is a complete and utter dog's breakfast.

Can you log in https://home.bt.com/login/loginform?TARGET=$SM$https%3A%2F%2Fsignin1.bt.com%2Fbtmail%2Fsecure%2Femai...  with either your original mail password, your Gmail password or the new BT password?

Set up the account in Outlook manually using the settings  here  using whichever password works above.

[jac_95]

Your MyBT account uses your BT ID that is the gmail email address

To add the created btinternet.com email account to an email client such as outlook you need to use the btinternet.com email address and the password you created for that mail account and not the MyBT (which is your Gmail address) one.

[Calmaria]

Thanks for the response.

The reason for wanting a BT email account is to replace the Virgin Media one I lost when moving ISPs.

As for the webmail, it seems I wasn't as clear as I thought I was in my original question: using the link you provided, which is the webmail login page, my BTID/password works and shows the btinternet.com address at the top right, which is the one I want to link Outlook to. Trying to login on that webmail login page with the BT email address and password fails and has now locked me out for 20 minutes for trying too many times.

As I said, I can't use the BTID in Outlook to collect BT mail because that points to a different email provider (which is already configured in Outlook, so creates a duplicate). To collect my BT email I need a BT specific email login, and the current one doesn't accept my credentials.

[licquorice]

Exactly the reason for not using an ISP based email address.

Go to the webmail login page, and click on 'forgotten your login details' and follow the prompts to change your password. Do not enter your BTID in any of the boxes, only enter your btinternet email address, the wording is very misleading.

[Calmaria]

I tried your suggestion, it got as far as asking me to enter the 2FA code it sent to my mobile then unhelpfully said "This page isn't working at the moment, my.bt.com didn’t send any data. ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE". Tried in two different browsers, so it's a problem at their end.

I don't use an ISP address directly, I have a domain and incoming emails were previously forwarded to Virgin Media, I was just looking to replicate the same setup with BT. I am inclined now to setup another webmail address and forward to that, linked to Outlook to keep things generic.

Thanks.