Add Account
The account set-up wizard will launch automatically after you first open the application.
For any additional accounts they can be added by going to the accounts menu, and then tapping the "Add account" option in the overflow menu.
First you are asked for your email address.
The buttons "Manual setup" and "Next" become only activated after a correctly formatted email address has been typed in.
If the email address belongs to a known email provider that requires the use of OAuth 2.0 (currently: Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail/Outlook), you'll see the following screen.
Tapping the "sign in" button will open the browser so you can authorise Bird Mail Mail to access your emails.
For all other providers, you'll be asked to provide your email password.
If you choose "Next" and the domain part of your email address is known to Bird Mail, the connection settings for the incoming and outgoing server are automatically set up for you. This is the case for some large email providers.
If you need to configure it manually, you will need to first choose an account type. The available options are POP3 and IMAP.
All of these are names of protocols to access your mailbox. If your email provider supports it, we strongly recommend you use IMAP. It is superior to the others and well supported by Bird Mail.
For more information see the linked Wikipedia entries:
The following images show all the IMAP related settings. Later we describe them in detail. Note that on a smartphone, your popped-up soft keyboard may be covering some of these entry fields; don't forget to scroll.
MAP server: This is the hostname or IP address of your IMAP server. Note that this address must resolve to your mail server no matter what network you're connected to -- if you provide a name or IP that's only resolvable inside your private network, that's the only place you'll be able to pick up email. (If you don't understand the preceding, then you probably don't need to worry about it.) Some firewalls can also cause trouble here.
Security: This specifies the cryptographic protocol that should be used when connecting to your IMAP server. Available options are:
- None: This doesn't use any transport security at all.
- STARTTLS: The STARTTLS method is used.
- SSL/TLS: TLS is used.
TLS and STARTTLS are both secure so it does not matter which you use, as long as it is supported by your mail provider. However TLS is now much more common.
Port: This is the port number the IMAP server is listening on. Most of the time you don't want to change this. It will generally be:
- 143 for non-encrypted or STARTTLS connections, and
- 993 for TLS.
If your port number is something else, the mail server administrator should have told you.
Username: This is the username that's needed to authenticate to the IMAP server. The field is initialized with the user part of your email address. Some servers are okay with this; some, generally those which support multiple domains, require that you fill in your entire email address here. In this case, if you entered the entire email address on the previous screen, you will need to re-enter the hostname part here, as Bird Mail doesn't know whether you need it and assumes you don't.
Authentication: This specifies which authentication method to use after you have a valid, hopefully encrypted, connection. Available options are:
- Normal password: The password is transmitted in plain text. If the connection security is TLS or STARTTLS, the password is still protected against eavesdroppers.
- Encrypted password: Use this if your server doesn't support transport security but supports the CRAM_MD5 authentication method.
- Client certificate: Use this if the service supports authentication using the client certificate from the TLS connection. If the server requires both certificate and password, choose one of the "Password" options here.
- OAuth 2.0: The app only supports this method with a handful of email providers (currently: Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail/Outlook)
- Password, transmitted insecurely: (Only displayed if Security is "None") Use only as a last resort. The password will be transmitted without any encryption.
Password: Here you enter the password to access your emails. The password you entered at the first step of the account creation process is pre-entered here. So you shouldn't need to change it. This password is the one which an administrator set for you or gave to you, which you use to retrieve mail from the mailbox.
Client certificate: If the server expects a TLS client certificate to be provided during the initial connection, use this to select one from the local Android certificate store.
Auto-detect IMAP namespace: Disable this to allow the IMAP path prefix to be specified manually.
IMAP path prefix: The content of this field is prepended to IMAP folder names before use. The main usage is to manually select which IMAP namespace to use. This can be automatically guessed, so usually, you don't need to change this.
POP3 server: This is the hostname or IP address of your POP3 server. Note that this address must resolve to your mail server no matter what network you're connected to -- if you provide a name or IP that's only resolvable inside your private network, that's the only place you'll be able to pick up email. (If you don't understand the preceding, then you probably don't need to worry about it.) Some firewalls can also cause trouble here.
Security: This specifies the cryptographic protocol that should be used when connecting to your IMAP server. Available options are:
- None: This doesn't use any transport security at all.
- STARTTLS: The STARTTLS method is used.
- SSL/TLS: TLS is used.
TLS and STARTTLS are both secure so it does not matter which you use, as long as it is supported by your mail provider. However TLS is now much more common.
Port: This is the port number the POP3 server is listening on. It will generally be:
- 110 for non-encrypted or STARTTLS connections, and
- 995 for TLS.
Username: This is the username that's needed to authenticate to the POP3 server. The field is initialized with the user part of your email address. Some servers are okay with this; some, generally those which support multiple domains, require that you fill in your entire email address here. In this case, if you entered the entire email address on the previous screen, you will need to re-enter the hostname part here, as Bird Mail doesn't know whether you need it and assumes you don't.
Authentication: This specifies which authentication method to use after you have a valid, hopefully encrypted, connection. Available options are:
- Normal password: This is the default method. You shouldn't need to change this.
- Encrypted password: Use this if your server doesn't support transport security but supports the CRAM_MD5 authentication method.
- Client certificate: Use this if the service supports authentication using the client certificate from the TLS connection. If the server requires both certificate and password, choose one of the "Password" options here.
- Password, transmitted insecurely: (Only displayed if Security is "None") Use only as a last resort. The password will be transmitted without any encryption.
Password: Here you enter the password to access your emails. The password you entered at the first step of the account creation process is pre-entered here. So you shouldn't need to change it. This password is the one which an administrator set for you or gave to you, which you use to retrieve mail from the mailbox.
Client certificate: If the server expects a TLS client certificate to be provided during the initial connection, use this to select one from the local Android certificate store.
After clicking "Next" Bird Mail tries to connect to the server to verify the settings. This means you need to have a working network connection to continue the setup.
To be able to send mail Bird Mail needs to know the settings to your provider's SMTP server. In this step of the account creation process you have to provide those details. Below is an explanation of the different settings. In certain circumstances, you may need to use a different outgoing server than you'd expect; we'll discuss those later.
Because of the nature of email service, you often (if not always, these days) send outgoing mail to one server, but pick up incoming mail from a separate one; this is why many of the items below say "this is often, but not always, the same as the setting for incoming mail".
SMTP server: This is the hostname or IP address of your SMTP server. As discussed under IMAP, this name or IP must be accessible from any network from which you may want to send mail, whether your cellular carrier's WAN or a private LAN via Wi-Fi. See below for more details if you have trouble.
Security: This specifies the cryptographic protocol that should be used when connecting to your SMTP server. Available options are:
- None: This doesn't use any transport security at all.
- SSL/TLS: TLS is used.
- STARTTLS: The STARTTLS method is used.
TLS and STARTTLS are both secure so it does not matter which you use, as long as it is supported by your outgoing mail provider.
Port: The port number your provider's SMTP is listening on. This may be 465 or 587, and in rare cases 25, depending on the configuration and transport security settings of your server and Bird Mail.
Require sign-in: Tells Bird Mail Mail whether or not it will be expected to authenticate to the server. In almost all cases this needs to remain checked.
Username: The username that's needed to authenticate to the SMTP server. This is usually equal to either the left-hand side of, or the entire, email address; your mail server operator should have told you what to use as an Outgoing username -- and it will commonly be identical to the incoming username, though not always.
Authentication: This specifies which authentication method to use. Available options are:
- Normal password: This is the default method that will automatically detect which authentication methods are supported. You shouldn't need to change this.
- Encrypted password: Use this if your server doesn't support transport security but supports the CRAM_MD5 authentication method.
- Client certificate: Use this if the service supports authentication using the client certificate from the TLS connection. If the server requires both certificate and password, choose one of the "Password" options here.
- OAuth 2.0: The app only supports this method with a handful of email providers (currently: Gmail, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail/Outlook).
- Password, transmitted insecurely: (Only displayed if Security is "None") Use only as a last resort. The password will be transmitted without any encryption.
Password: The password that's needed to authenticate to the SMTP server. This is often, though not always, identical to the password for the incoming server.
Client certificate: If the server expects a TLS client certificate to be provided during the initial connection, use this to select one from the local Android certificate store.
To complete the outgoing server configuration click "Next". Again, Bird Mail tries to connect to the server to verify the settings you just entered.