Using AOL and AIM mail

From MozillaZine Knowledge Base
Revision as of 20:08, 5 February 2007 by Tanstaafl (talk | contribs) (updated to mention aim, compuserve and netscape mail migration. will update rest later.)
Jump to navigationJump to search

AOL mail, AIM mail, and Compuserve mail all use AOL's IMAP server. Netscape mail accounts have been migrated to AIM mail. The main difference between the different versions of "AOL mail" is that a AOL account imposes the most restrictions on what you can do with the IMAP server and a AIM account the least. The IMAP server does not support AOL-only features such as AOL Return Receipts and checking a message's status.

Create a new account in Mozilla Suite or Thunderbird and choose IMAP as your server type. Then, use the following information to complete the fields:

Incoming server (IMAP) imap.aol.com
Port Leave it to be set automatically (993 for SSL)
Security Settings/connection AOL supports SSL, so you should probably use it.
Security Settings/Use secure authentication Do not check; AOL does not support this; see Note, below.
Username Your screen name
Outgoing Server (SMTP) smtp.aol.com
Username Your screen name
Security/connection AOL supports SSL, so you should probably use it; use port 465 in this case.
Port 587 (but 465 for SSL)
Description Name Whatever you wish

You will be asked for the password when you connect for the first time.

AOL account:

You cannot manually add messages to the Inbox or Sent Items folders. Messages will be added to those folders after messages have been sent and received by the AOL server. You should probably use Local Folders if you want to store sent mail, email drafts, and templates. You can configure this under the account settings by selecting "Copies & Folders" under Account Settings. However, if you use Thunderbird/Mozilla (not AOL webmail or the AOL mail client) to create folders with different names (e.g. Drafts--Tbird and Sent--Tbird) and change your "Copies & Folders" account settings appropriately, you may be able to get Thunderbird to save drafts and sent mail in them; I did.

AIM account:

AIM doesn't have any of the AOL account restrictions. It will add a "Saved Mail" and "Spam" folder and any inbox child folders are displayed as peers rather than child folders.


Country server addresses:-

UK imap.uk.aol.com & smtp.uk.aol.com

Canada imap.ca.aol.com & smtp.ca.aol.com

Australia imap.au.aol.com & smtp.au.aol.com

Mexico imap.mx.aol.com & smtp.mx.aol.com

Argentina imap.ar.aol.com & smtp.ar.aol.com

Brazil imap.br.aol.com & smtp.br.aol.com

France imap.fr.aol.com & smtp.fr.aol.com

Germany imap.de.aol.com & smtp.de.aol.com

Japan imap.jp.aol.com & smtp.jp.aol.com

USA imap.aol.com & smtp.aol.com

See also

External Links