Email client support

[medwds]

As a computer technician, I help many BT email customers. Something I've experienced twice now is that after BT locks a compromised email account, and we restore and secure it, we can't add the account to an email client like the Mail app on iPhone.

The detail varies, but one error is "Cannot connect using SSL". In the more recent case, I could set up the account manually and IMAP worked but not SMTP. In other words, we could receive email messages but not send them.

What was particularly embarrassing in the more recent case was to call BT and be told "If it works in webmail, the problem is with your device." This is of course untrue. "It's an Apple problem, so contact them." That sort of thing. And "We only support the BT Mail app." Fair enough if they mean 'support' in a customer service sense, but in a technical sense the servers do 'support' IMAP and SMTP.

There have been numerous posts here about this kind of problem over the years, and there's blatantly an issue on BT's side. I'm not saying there aren't times the customer gets the configuration wrong, but that doesn't apply to the cases I've seen personally. Does anyone here know if BT has acknowledged the problem? And are there any obscure fixes I might have missed?

To preempt the obvious answers, in the more recent case:

• Changing the password again didn't work
• Waiting several minutes didn't work
• Completely removing and re-adding the account didn't work
• The same problem occurred on multiple devices
• The customer pays for BT broadband and has email as part of that

[gg30340]

The first thing to check is in the person's MyBT > Your Products > Email, Manage > at the top of the page the email account status is showing as "Standard" or "Premium"  if it is showing as "Basic" this will not allow BTMail to work with email clients or email apps.

If it is showing as " Standard" the following which is not an official BT fix but it has been found to frequently work when changing the password or re adding BTMail onto Apple devices.

If you have deleted the email account from the device you should not add it at this time and if you have not deleted the account and you are going to change the password again do not do that at this time.

You should stop any other devices from checking for email on that account. The easiest way of doing that is to turn them off if you still have the account on other devices or you have not removed the account from the device or add a couple of characters to the email address so that it is not checking  the account.

Once you have done that, change your email password on webmail and check that you can access your email via webmail.

If that works you should wait at least an hour to allow the BT email servers to sync and then add the new password to the device, remembering to remove any characters you may have added and again check it works. If it does then move onto the next device if there is one.

When entering the settings, make sure that in the Outgoing server you do not use the "use same as incoming" for the email address and password. Enter them manually.

If the above does not resolve the problem, when you change your BT password on an iPhone/iPad/Apple device it may only change for INCOMING mail.

This part may be telling you how how to suck eggs but in case you don't know, to change the OUTGOING mail password go into Settings; then scroll down to Passwords & Accounts or on older devices Mail, Contacts, Calendars. From there select the BT email account and select the account where it is listed under IMAP.

Find the details for the account and check the password for the Incoming server is correct . The OUTGOING mail server only shows SMTP and mail.btinternet.com You have to tap on that Primary Server in order to find where the OUTGOING password is hidden so you can update it.

When setting up the email account on the device you are best to set it up manually, using "other" and ensure that you are using the correct settings as per this link.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/manage-email-account/manual-settings/what-are-the-settings-for-outgoin...

[medwds]

Thank you for the additional ideas. The need to wait an hour and do the trickery with stopping other devices checking for mail does of course point to a problem on BT's end. But if it works, it works — and that's probably the best we can hope for!

I'm sure the account isn't Basic because IMAP (receiving) works.

I don't know the extent to which external linking is allowed here, but my website has a guide to updating a mail password on iPhone and iPad which details the process you've given. Note that it's several years since it's been Settings > Passwords & Accounts. After that I think it was Settings > Mail and nowadays it's Settings > Apps > Mail. I need to check whether the later steps have changed yet again in iOS 26 and if so I'll update the guide accordingly. You're welcome to link to it or just copy and paste the steps any time, if it would help you help others.

[licquorice]

I can't say for certain, but I think BT only stop SMTP access for Basic Mail (and probably POP3) which kind of makes sense as it is only clients rather than webmail that would use SMTP. I guess it would be difficult to stop IMAP solely for clients.

[gg30340 · Accepted solution]

You can still receive with an email client with a "Basic" account. It is only sending that gets blocked hence my suggestion that you check to see what the email account status is in MyBT. 

It could save you a lot of wasted time in trying to get an app/client to work when there is no way that it will if you have a "Basic" account. 

The reason that I included the older iPhone settings was that some forum users had complained that their iPhone was different to the settings I had given.

I don't use Apple devices so my guide for the newer iPhone may very well be out of date.

[medwds]

Thanks @licquorice — that's a really interesting point that webmail and the app likely use IMAP behind the scenes.

@gg30340 — I have confirmed that the steps have not changed for iOS 26, so my guide to changing a mail password on iPhone and iPad remains correct. You're welcome to either refer people to it or copy and paste from it.