Learn about Email Protocols - Take Control of Apple Mail (1.0) - page 15

Tip: I go into more detail about why and how to switch from POP to IMAP in my Mac-
world article The IMAP advantage .
• If it doesn't work: Contact your email provider to see if it can enable IMAP
for you. In some cases, you may need to set up an entirely new email account. If
your provider doesn't offer IMAP and you're interested in switching to one that
does, consult this (somewhat dated, but still useful) list of providers .
Tip: My current IMAP provider is easyMail from easyDNS . To learn more about why
I made that choice, see my Macworld article Why (and how) I'm saying goodbye to
Gmail .
iCloud
For the most part, everything I said earlier in this chapter about IMAP accounts is also true
of iCloud accounts. In fact, you can use any IMAP client—not just Mail—to connect to your
iCloud account. But unlike other clients, Mail can use any iCloud email aliases you've set up
(for details, read Use iCloud Aliases ) —they appear automatically as options in the Account
pop-up menu in the New Message window. In addition, as long as you're signed in to your
iCloud account with Documents & Data enabled on each of your Macs, the settings for all
your email accounts—not just iCloud—will sync between Macs automatically, so once you set
up an email account on one Mac, you don't need to set it up again on any other Macs using
the same iCloud account. (Unfortunately, this doesn't apply to iOS devices.)
iCloud offers many other benefits, too, such as push updates of contacts, calendars, remind-
ers, bookmarks, notes, and Keychain items; Photo Stream to ensure that your latest photos
appear automatically on all your devices; and Documents in the Cloud to keep documents
in sync in supported apps. And it's free! Even if you use another provider for your primary
email account (as I do), I suggest setting up an iCloud account as well.
Tip: I cover iCloud mail in detail in my topic Take Control of iCloud .
Exchange
Microsoft Exchange servers handle email, contacts, shared calendars, and a variety of other
network services for many organizations. Under Windows, Outlook is the application of
choice for working with Exchange-based data. You can now buy a version of Outlook for OS
X, too; it's part of Microsoft Office for Mac Home & Business 2011 . However, Mail—on both