Shared VPS Dedicated WP Professional Plus
WP Enthusiast and WP Professional hosting accounts can use this tutorial if the Email Add On has been enabled.
To send email, you will need to specify an SMTP (outgoing email) server in your email reader.
As a Pair Networks customer, you may use our SMTP service as long as you are not in violation of our policies (i.e. not sending out spam). Also, please do not use our mail server for:
- Sending out large quantities of email to multiple recipients (i.e. running a mailing list).
- Sending large attachments
- Sending email from addresses not affiliated with your accounts and services obtained from Pair Networks
- Spam
SMTP Server Name
If your web hosting account was created before June 1, 2011, your SMTP server is mail###.pair.com, where "###" is your mail server number. Your mail server number can be found in the ACC.
If your web hosting account was created on or after June 1, 2011, your SMTP server is username.mail.pairserver.com, where "username" is replaced by your Pair Networks username.
SMTP AUTH
We require SMTP Authentication, also known as SMTP AUTH. With SMTP AUTH, you connect your email client directly to your email hosting server to send email using your mailbox username and password. This ensures the validity of outgoing email.
Outgoing email configuration using SMTP AUTH is simple: just use the same hostname, username, and password settings that you use to retrieve your incoming email. The specific settings you should use for a particular mailbox are available in the Account Control Center (ACC) E-Mail Management interface. View the mailbox you're interested in, and the proper Username and Hostname settings will be displayed.
SMTP AUTH is activated on all standard outgoing email ports, so the default port number should work without modification. If your email client has an option to use SSL/TLS or STARTTLS, you must turn it on. To prevent your mailbox username and password from being compromised, we require the use of SSL/TLS or STARTTLS encryption for all SMTP AUTH requests.
File Size Limits
Please also note that the file size limit when sending mail is 40 MB. This limit is for the message body and the sum of all attachments in their encoded state. When a file is encoded for email, it can increase the size of the file significantly. With a limit of 40 MB, you may only be able to attach files around 35 MB (before encoding). The exact size of the file will depend on the contents of the file itself.
Outgoing E-Mail Ports
Many ISPs, including America Online, EarthLink, and MSN, will not allow access to an external SMTP server. This is most commonly implemented by blocking traffic to port 25, the SMTP port. If your email reader supports it, you may work around this restriction by using port 465 or 587 instead.
If your ISP filters port 25 and your email reader cannot use a different port, or if your ISP filters by some other means, you will not be able to use our SMTP service. If you are a subscriber of one of these services, please contact your ISP for assistance in using SMTP to send email.
SMTP Over SSL
If you are using SSL and your account was created prior to June 1, 2011, you must use mailX.pair.com to avoid secure certificate mismatch warnings. "X" should be replaced with your server number.
For accounts created after June 1, 2011, you must use username.mail.pairserver.com to avoid secure certificate mismatch warnings. "Username" should be replaced with your main account username.
The default port for SSL with SMTP is 465. However, most email reader programs will use this port automatically, so you probably do not need to set this port yourself.
For help with your email reader, please see the Setting up an email reader article.