Setting up Apple Mail from macOS 13 (Ventura) and newer

If you are starting Mail for the first time, the "Select provider for mail account" settings window opens automatically. Click on "Other mail account...". Select "Continue" and then enter your personal data.

If you have already set up accounts in Mail and would like to add a new account, start Mail and click on the small"+" symbol under the menu item Mail -> Settings -> Accounts, on the left below the account list. The "Add account" window will now open, in which you can start entering your personal data.

Under "Full name", enter your name as it should appear in the sender field of your emails.

Under "E-mail address", enter your university e-mail address in the form Account-Name@smail.uni-koeln.de as student:r or Account-Name@uni-koeln.de as employee:r. The password is the corresponding account password.

Then confirm by clicking "Login" and you will be taken to a new window in which you must make further settings. Ignore the message that the account name/password could not be verified.

Now enter the user data and the information for the incoming and outgoing mail server.

Double-check that your e-mail address is correct and then add your student or staff account and the corresponding password under "Username" and "Password". As Apple Mail does not automatically read the addresses of the university's incoming and outgoing mail servers, you will need to make a few adjustments here. First select your mail server type, POP or IMAP (see box below for more information on POP/IMAP). We recommend using IMAP. If you have selected IMAP as your mail server type, please enter the server name imap.uni-koeln.de under "Server for incoming e-mails". If you have selected POP as the mail server type, enter the server name pop.uni-koeln.de.

Under Server for outgoing mails, enter smtp-auth.uni-koeln.de.

Confirm by clicking on Log in.

Then navigate to the Server settings tab and check that all data is entered correctly under Outgoing e-mail server (SMTP) . Pay particular attention here to uncheck Manage connection settings automatically and set the authentication to "Password" further down. Click on the Save button to save your settings.

A small window may open asking you to select the apps for which your account should be used. Confirm your selection with "Done". Your e-mail account has been successfully created. Please note that you must also carry out the steps below in order to be able to send emails successfully.

You can access the settings window via the menu item Mail --> Settings --> Accounts. Or via shortcut"cmd ,"

• Select the relevant account.
• The various tabs below the toolbar, such as "Account information" and "Mailbox behavior" are provided to adjust the description or make further settings regarding the sorting of your mails.
• However, the "Server settings" item is particularly important for editing an existing mail account. The user name, password and server addresses can be adjusted here. To edit the outgoing server, however, the corresponding account must first be selected from the drop-down menu. The user name, password and server address can then also be changed here.
• Please note, however, that you cannot change an account from POP to IMAP by changing the incoming server address! See the box below for the procedure.

Important notes:

• To change the server type, for example from POP to IMAP, you must delete the existing account by clicking on the small '-' symbol below the list and then create a new one by clicking on the '+' symbol as described at the beginning!
• Attention: When you delete an account, the account and its contents (including the emails belonging to the account) are irrevocably deleted.
• To avoid deleting all emails, it is recommended that you only deactivate the account under Settings -> Accounts -> uncheck the box above. The account will then no longer be used, but all data will be retained and you will be able to import your e-mails at a later date.
• You can set up several accounts, for example for mail with several mail providers. However, you cannot use POP and IMAP at the same time with the same mail provider.
• If you have any further questions, especially about archiving your data, please contact us.