AOL recently opened their mail servers to other mail clients under their new "Open Mail Access" program. This will allow AOL users to use an IMAP capable mail client, such as Microsoft Outlook, to check their AOL mail. Also, they allow you to use AOL's SMTP servers to send mail from your favorite mail client, but it does require some reconfiguration.

AOL e-mail can be sent and received using other e-mail applications by setting up a connection to AOL's e-mail servers. Setting up access to the servers is relatively simple, and the settings are similar for most e-mail applications.

The incoming e-mail server is an IMAP server. You will need to ensure that your e-mail application supports the IMAP protocol and you will have to select IMAP at some point during the setup process.

The outgoing e-mail server is an SMTP server. The SMTP server requires authentication, and you will have to select this feature at some point during the setup process. Using an authenticated SMTP server means that in order to send e-mail you must log in the SMTP server with a user name and password. The user name and password are the same as your AOL screen name and password. In addition, you need to change the outgoing mail (SMTP) port number to 587.

Incoming e-mail server address: imap.aol.com.

Outgoing e-mail server address: smtp.aol.com.

Posted by Michael at August 10, 2004 02:16 PM

Posted by: JP Balzen at August 12, 2004 06:48 PM