Support - POP/IMAP Accounts vs. Aliases
POP Accounts:
A POP Account is a mailbox – it is a physical location on our mail server.
- This is where your email messages are ‘physically’ received (or kept until you check your mail) much like mail going to a PO Box at the post office or to your home.
- Your POP account is frequently referred to as your 'User Name' in your email client (like Outlook) or, 'UserID' in the Adhost Webmail.
Email Alias (aka your email address):
Your email alias is simply your email address.
- This is what you would give out to others so they can email you, like "joesmith@mywebsite.com".
- This is similar to writing an address like 140 4th Ave N, Seattle, WA 98109 on the front of an envelope. This tells the postal person WHERE (the physical location) to deliver the letter.
How It Works on the Internet:
When a user composes an email message to you, they indicate who they want the message sent to by addressing the envelope with something like "joesmith@mywebsite.com".
- When our mail server receives this ‘envelope’ with your email address (email alias) it looks for a “Domain Email Alias” file for your domain (mywebsite.com)
- The “Domain Email Alias” file is a list of all the email aliases associated with your domain.
- Once it finds your Domain Email Alias file, it then searches for your email alias in that file and delivers the message to your POP account (your PO Box).
- If it does not find your email alias, it then looks for a catch-all.
