Configuring your email client

To assist with configuring your email client, guides have been provided for some of the more commonly used email clients:

If your email client is not covered by one of these guides, the settings in brief are as follows:

  • Mail collection server: mailhost.cs.bham.ac.uk
  • Mail collection server type: IMAP (using SSL)
  • Username & Password: Your Windows username & password

SMTP Server Settings

You will only be able to use the School's SMTP server for sending email from machines located within the School. If you are accessing email from your home, then you need to specify your ISP's SMTP server as the outgoing server.

  • Outgoing (SMTP) server (from within the school): mail-relay.cs.bham.ac.uk
  • Outgoing (SMTP) server (from home): Your ISP's SMTP server

Secure SMTP

You may need to contact the IT Services Desk for more detail but the key information is as follows:

  • SMTP Server is auth-smtp.bham.ac.uk
  • SMTP Server uses port 465 with SSL and requires Authentication
You will need to know your central University username and password to use their secure SMTP server.


A webMail service is also available.

SSL Support

The email collection server only supports SSL encrypted connections. The certificate for the server is signed by the School of Computer Science, to stop warning messages and make SSL function correctly, you may need to import the School's signing key into your client.

POP Support

The Support Team recommends the use of IMAP to collect your email - IMAP stores the messages and mail folders on the mail server (rather than your own computer) and they are therefore available from anywhere in the world (e.g. via Webmail). The mail server does however support the POP3 protocol should you have a need for this.