SMTP server not working.

[drifter]

Thank you - I will give that a go later and let you know if I have been succesful. 

[brettjhonson]

Double-check the SMTP configuration (server, port, and encryption) and make sure they match the settings provided by your email provider or get SMTP server from best SMTP service providers like SMTPget, SendGrid, iDealSMTP, and more.

[jtennet]

Hi there,

You are correct in your suggestion of what to check but, having been an it engineer for more years than I care to remember I did all those things. My case is somewhat different in that the SMTP server is intermittent. Whether on my Mac Pro, My wife's Windows 11 laptop, my Wndows 11 PC or my iPhone 16 Pro. I will be unable to sent an email with the SMTP server requests the password. It than fixes itself some hours later.

Why do I pay £7.50 a month for a non-premium email service? I had been with BT since the turn of the century but no more - unfortunately I need the email addresses.

[gg30340]

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@jtennet wrote:

Why do I pay £7.50 a month for a non-premium email service? I had been with BT since the turn of the century but no more - unfortunately I need the email addresses.

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In case you are not aware. There is nothing premium about BT Premium email other than its price. It is exactly the same as the BTMail standard email account that is free if you were a BTBroadband customer prior to October 2022.

If you have left BT Broadband, you can retain your email addresses/ account for free. It will be "downgraded" to a BTMail Basic account. This can only be accessed using a web browser and can not be used with an email client/app.

At present you may find that if you are using BTMail Basic you can forward your BT emails to another email account such as gmail and you will be able to use that gmail account on an email client/app and access your BTMail Basic forwarded emails that way. 

Be aware that the forwarding facility could be removed at any time by BT but given that some people have been forwarding their emails since 2022 I suspect that it will not be removed any time soon. More likely that BT in line with other ISPs will stop offering an email service to its current users at some point in the future. 

See link

https://www.bt.com/help/email/bt-email-products

[jtennet]

@gg30340 And? I pay for so called premium email. The SMTP server fails regularly - probably 3 or 4 times a week. If I cannot send a message I have several other accounts I can use but that is not the point. The point is that I cannot rely on BT Mail to always be available. I can always receive mail so the POP or SMTP servers always work. This is why I say why do I pay £7.50 every month for a lousy service.

I cannot contact email support for help as they say that if webmail works, there is no problem. NOT support ay all.

[Richard52294]

I know I'm very late to this party, but I too had all the problems mentioned by previous contributors and , no matter what i did, I never did manage to get the server setup to access my email. And it wasn't for any lack of trying along with  a number of prolonged phone calls to the BT Help lines!

I soldiered on for quite some time by using my webmail access, which while  usable, was not a really  usable alternative to my previous highly usable and much loved Thunderbird.

I have good news for all you previous contributors, I HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER, that gives me what I had before!

I am now using a free program called EPIM Mail, and I have to say it is 95%+ identical to Thunderbird and even has a built-in Calendar (as Thunderbird had) and it just works....!

I used all the correct settings as recommended by BT to setup  an IMAP connection - and it went straight through without any hitch at all - saw the BT Webmail Account within 20 seconds and was working flawlessly inside a minute!

One or two of the visual aspects of EPIM Mail are slightly different, but anyone used to Thunderbird will see that it is Thunderbird with a new shirt on!

I have now set it up on two of my other computers and I'm chuffed to bits with EPIM Mail, (Download it from their website - https://www.epim.com/) and I would recommend it to everybody.

The built in Calendar is as good as the one in Thunderbird, but even better because you can apply different colours for the categories being used - and the weekly view also can be seen on the email page in a panel of its own, a great bonus.

Two and a half days using it now and I have not found any problems with it at all - and I can now forget about using that long-winded webmail altogether.

Just hope this superb little free program gets the applause it really deserves. Al you Thunderbird lovers, 'fill yer boots'  as they say,

Richard