rackspace email hosting helps you create a custom email address (eg [email protected]). using the correct rackspace email setup, you can set it up with your email client or website.
While rackspace’s website hosting products use a highly technical iaas approach, their email hosting is affordable and easy to set up. that makes it a great option to pair with kinsta if you want to set up a custom email address along with your kinsta hosted wordpress site.
We will share all the critical rackspace settings for imap, pop and smtp in this post. Then we’ll show you step-by-step how to set up four popular email clients to use Rackspace email: Outlook, Thunderbird, Windows Mail, and iOS Mail. We’ll also show you how to configure your wordpress site to send transactional emails using the rackspace smtp server.
let’s dig deeper!
what are rackspace email settings?
These are the three most important rackspace email settings you need to set up your email client or website:
- imap
- pop
- smtp
These are the details you’ll need for each.
rackspace image configuration
imap allows you to configure your email client to receive incoming mail from your rackspace email account. allows two-way sync, which is great if you’ll be checking email from multiple devices.
here are the imap settings in rackspace:
- server: secure.emailsrvr.com
- port: 993
- required ssl: yes
- username: your full email address
- password: the same password you use to login rackspace webmail
rackspace popup configuration
pop is another protocol that allows you to receive incoming mail.
You can use pop if you only plan to access your email from a single device, but it’s not ideal for use on multiple devices because it doesn’t support two-way sync like imap. for this reason, rackspace recommends that you use imap whenever possible.
These are the popup configurations in rackspace:
- server: secure.emailsrvr.com
- port: 995
- requires ssl: yes
- username: your full email address
- password: the same password you use to login rackspace webmail
rackspace smtp configuration
While imap and pop help you receive incoming mail, smtp is a protocol that handles sending email through rackspace. you can use it to configure your email client so that you can send email directly through that client. and if you have a wordpress site, you can also configure the site to send your emails using rackspace smtp to improve deliverability.
These are the smtp settings in rackspace:
- server: secure.emailsrvr.com
- port: 465
- requires ssl: yes
- username: your full email address
- password: the same password you use to login rackspace webmail
how to set up your email client with rackspace email
Now, let’s see how you can use the rackspace configuration above to configure different email clients. As mentioned above, we’ll cover these four popular email clients:
- outlook
- thunderbird
- windows (default client)
- ios (default client)
The nice thing about most of these clients is that you don’t need to enter your imap and smtp details to use them manually. the only exception is the ios mail app, which will require you to provide those details yourself.
perspective
To configure outlook to use rackspace, start by opening your outlook email client.
if this is your first time opening outlook, you will first be prompted to enter your rackspace email address:
On the next screen, choose IMAP:
Then, enter the password that you use to log in to your Rackspace webmail:
You should see a success message. Click Done to continue to the Outlook interface:
Now, you should be able to send and receive emails using Outlook.
thunder bird
When you open thunderbird, you will be prompted to “set up your current email address”. enter your rackspace email address and the password you use to log in to rackspace webmail:
Thunderbird should automatically detect the proper protocols — click Done to finish the process and start sending and receiving emails:
Windows Mail App
if you don’t want to use outlook, you can also use the default windows mail app to set up your rackspace email.
To get started, open the mail app. If this is your first time launching the app, you will be prompted to add an account as soon as you open the app. if not, you can add a new account by going to settings > manage accounts > add account.
In the list of account options, choose another account (pop, imap):
On the next screen, enter your Rackspace email address and password:
And that’s it! You should be able to send and receive emails right away.
ios mail app
To set up your iOS device to use rackspace email, you can use the default mail app.
If this is the first time you’ve opened the Mail app, you’ll be prompted to add an email account. otherwise you can go to settings > passwords and accounts > add account to manually add a new email account.
When adding an account, choose other:
Next, enter your Rackspace email address and the password that you use to log into webmail:
At this point, you’ll be prompted to enter the Rackspace IMAP and SMTP details (listed earlier in this article). The details will be the same for both incoming and outgoing mail servers as you aren’t required to enter the port number manually:
Once you enter all of the details, the Mail app will verify them. If everything looks good, you can immediately start sending and receiving emails using the Mail app.
rackspace email connection troubleshooting
If you’re having trouble receiving or sending email, here are some troubleshooting tips to help you get things working.
problems receiving emails
If you are having trouble receiving emails, you should first try logging in directly to your rackspace webmail.
If you see the email in webmail, but it doesn’t appear in your email client, double check your connection settings.
make sure you have entered the correct information; it’s easy to make a small mistake:
- typos: any typos in your username or password will make the connection impossible.
- port numbers: make sure have the port numbers for your chosen protocol. smtp is 465, imap is 993, and pop is 995.
problems sending emails
If you’re having trouble sending email from your email client, here are some tips.
First, try logging into your rackspace webmail account and send an email directly from there. If the email works when you send it via webmail but not when you use your email client, the smtp settings you entered may not be correct.
If you are unable to send emails from your webmail or email client, your emails may be marked as spam. be sure to follow all email best practices when composing your outgoing messages to avoid this.
how to configure wordpress to send email via rackspace smtp
if you have a wordpress website, you can also use the rackspace smtp server to send transactional emails from your wordpress site, improving its reliability and solving problems with wordpress emails not being sent.
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Transactional emails are essential day-to-day emails like password resets, form submission notifications, etc.
rackspace’s smtp server is capped at 10,000 emails per day, which means that unless you’re sending a monstrous number of messages daily, you’re unlikely to have a problem using rackspace for both your email as for your wordpress site emails.
To set this up in wordpress, the only information you’ll need is:
- your existing rackspace email account (you don’t need to create a new account or set up anything new in rackspace).
- the free publish smtp plugin allows you to set up your wordpress site to send emails via rackspace smtp.
let’s take a closer look at how to configure it.
1. configure smtp publishing settings
To get started, install and activate the free Yehuda Hassine Post SMTP Plugin. after that go to the post smtp area in your wordpress dashboard and click show all settings to access the full post smtp settings area:
First, go to the Message tab and enter your Rackspace email in the Email Address area. You can also enter the name that you want to use for your site’s emails:
Save your changes and then open the area of the full settings again.
This time, you’ll be working in the account tab. First, configure the dropdown menus in the transport section as follows:
- type: smtp
- mail type: post smtp
Selecting this option will expand a new set of options below — this is where you need to enter the Rackspace SMTP information. Configure these settings as follows:
- outgoing mail server hostname: secure.emailsrvr.com
- outgoing mail server port: 465
- envelope email address: your full rackspace email address
- security: smtps
- authentication : login
- username: your full rackspace email address
- password : the rackspace email password you use to log in to rackspace webmail
lastly, make sure to click save changes:
2. Send a Test Email
now it’s time to send a test email to make sure everything is working properly.
go back to the main post smtp area in wordpress and choose send a test email:
Enter your email address and click Next:
If the configuration worked, you should see a success message:
You also should see the email in your inbox — it should display as coming from your Rackspace email address:
And that’s it! Your WordPress site will now send all of its emails through your Rackspace account.
If you have trouble setting up rackspace smtp server, you can always try another free smtp server like gmail smtp, sendgrid api, outlook smtp or yahoo smtp.
summary
While rackspace’s cloud solutions aren’t as affordable as kinsta’s for website building, they do offer affordable email hosting, making them a solid choice for kinsta users or anyone else. looking for an email hosting solution.
Now that you know rackspace email setup for imap, pop and smtp, you can configure any email client to send and receive email using your rackspace account.
if you have a wordpress website, you can also use the rackspace smtp server to deliver your site’s transactional emails and improve its reliability.
Still have questions about these rackspace email settings or how to use them? Let us know in the comments section!