Google Apps Help - Rex Moncrief's Smartergeek Tech Services

If your domain is using Google Apps for your Domain, which acts as the email server system, it receives all your mail (inbound and outbound) and processes it for spam, viruses, and phishing. This is done by pointing certain parts of your domain name (CNAME and MX records) to Google’s services. If you are an admin with Google’s services, you can also add/remove features as well as add/remove users and email addresses.

You can use either IMAP, POP3, or web-based access for your email – or a combination of all 3. If you use POP3, then inbound mail is delivered to Thunderbird, Outlook, or Outlook Express (or your email program) every-time it is requested – usually every 3 minutes. A copy of all inbound mail is also kept on the Google email servers. Outbound mail from your email program is first sent to Google’s email servers for processing. Then a copy is forwarded on to the recipient. A copy of all outbound mail is also kept on the Google email servers. This provides a backup source for your email and gives you web-based access to your mail from any location.

Web-Based Access (like going directly to the post office)

example: http://mail.yourwebsite.com

Most email is sent over the Internet in plain text and can potentially be easily sniffed right off a network. A good example is a hotel with Internet access. Someone with free network sniffing software can actually pull your information right off the “network” at the hotel – unless you use an encrypted SSL session, which Google does by default. Checking your email through this link allows you to securely communicate from your computer to Google’s servers. Of course, from that point out, security depends on the recipients email system.

*Note: Thunderbird and other email programs (Outlook, Outlook Express, etc) use an encrypted session with Google’s email servers – so you are protected when using them at least from your computer to Google’s email servers.

Checking other Email Accounts

Your email address can be configured to check other POP3 enabled email systems. This gives you one “central point” to check all of your email. For instance, if you have an email address of yourname@comcast.net, you can have yourname@yourwebsite.com automatically pull in your comcast email.

Quick Tour:

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/apps_video.html

Comprehensive Overview:

https://services.google.com/apps/site/overview/index.html

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/admins/online_seminars/apps_overview/premium_seminar.html

Product Overview – How to Use Your Email, Calendar, Start Page, and Docs

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/Mail/index.html

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/Calendar/index.html

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/StartPage/index.html

http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews_breeze/DocsSpreadsheets/index.html

http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/users/talk.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA

Google Apps Help Center – Users

http://google.com/support/a/users/?hl=en

Google Apps for Administrators

http://www.google.com/support/a/

Gmail Getting Started Guide

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=90877&topic=12925

POP Settings:

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&ctx=mail&answer=12103

Your Name:	(optional)
E-mail address:	(your email address, including ‘@yourwebsite.com’)
User Name:	(your email address, including ‘@yourwebsite.com’)
Password:	(your email password)
Remember password:	(optional)
Log on using Secure Password Authentication:	disabled
Incoming mail server (POP3):	pop.gmail.com *Yes – use Gmail’s servers
Outgoing mail server (SMTP):	smtp.gmail.com *Yes – use Gmail’s servers

Outgoing Server tab

My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication:	enabled
Use same settings as my incoming mail server:	enabled

Advanced tab

Incoming server (POP3):	995
This server requires a secure connection (SSL)	enabled
Outgoing server (SMTP):	465 or 25
This server requires a secure connection (SSL)	enabled
Server Timeouts	(Greater than 1 minute, we recommend 5)
Leave a copy of messages on the server	disabled

Web-Based Access (like going directly to the post office)

Checking other Email Accounts

POP Settings:

Other Email Helpful Links: