To help you stay in touch with people around the world, you can set up one or more email accounts on your iPad. As long as you can access the Internet on your iPad, you'll be able to use Gmail, Yahoo!, iCloud, Hotmail, AOL, Microsoft Exchange, or any other email account that you want.
When you set up your iPad, you may have already set up an email account, but you can always add additional email accounts as well.
If you use one of the more common email providers such as AOL, Yahoo!, Google, iCloud, or Microsoft Exchange, your iPad can set up your email account almost automatically. All you have to do is type in your email address, and your iPad can figure out the correct settings.
To set up a common email account, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears.
Tap Add Account. The Add Account screen appears, as shown in Figure 14-1.
Tap the type of email account you want to add, such as Gmail or Hotmail. A screen appears where you can type in your name, email address, password, and optional description, as shown in Figure 14-2.
Note
If you start the Mail app for the first time without setting up an account, you'll be prompted with the same options shown in Figure 14-1.
Type your name, email address, password, and optional description of your account, and tap Next in the upper-right corner. Another window appears, letting you include Mail, Calendars, and Notes from that account, as shown in Figure 14-3.
Tap the on/off buttons for Mail, Calendar, and Notes, and tap the Save button.
Tap Mail. If you're currently connected to the Internet, your iPad will retrieve any messages for that email account. With multiple email accounts, you must choose which account you want to open in Mail, as shown in Figure 14-4.
If you need to set up an email account that isn't from one of the more popular providers, you'll need to type some additional information such as your incoming and outgoing mail server settings. (If you have no idea what these settings are, you'll need to get them from your email provider or your Internet service provider.)
To set up an email account manually, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears.
Tap Add Account. The Add Account screen appears (shown earlier in Figure 14-1).
Tap Other. The Other screen appears, as shown in Figure 14-5.
Tap Add Mail Account. A New Account window appears with the virtual keyboard.
Type your name, email address, password, and description of your email account, and tap Next. Another New Account window appears as shown in Figure 14-6.
Tap the IMAP or POP button.
Scroll down and type your host name, username, and password for your incoming and outgoing mail servers.
Tap Next.
Press the Home button. The Home screen appears.
Tap Mail. If you're currently connected to the Internet, your iPad will retrieve any messages for that email account.
After you have set up one or more email accounts, you might want to customize the way they display information. These customizing options aren't necessary, but you might want to choose one or more settings to make your email account uniquely your own. Some of the options you can modify are as follows:
Show Defines how many messages to display
Preview Defines how many lines of each message to display
Show To/Cc Label Displays the To and Cc labels in the preview of your list of messages
Ask Before Deleting Makes you verify that you really want to delete a message
Load Remote Images Turns on (or off) the ability to display images in an email message (turn this setting off to save bandwidth)
Organize By Thread Turns on (or off) the ability to show related messages and replies
Always Bcc Myself Sends a copy of each message to yourself so you know it was sent
Signature Lets you define a message to appear at the end of every message you send
Default Account Defines which email address Mail uses when you send a message such as via clicking a Contact Us link on a web page
To customize your email account settings, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears.
(Optional) Tap Show. When the Show screen appears, tap an option such as 50 Recent Messages or 200 Recent Messages, and tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendars button in the upper-left corner.
(Optional) Tap Preview. When the Preview screen appears, tap an option such as 3 Lines or 5 Lines, and tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendars button.
(Optional) Tap Minimum Font Size. When the Minimum Font Size screen appears, tap an option such as Small or Medium, and tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendars button.
(Optional) Tap the Show To/Cc Label on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Ask Before Deleting on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Load Remote Images on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Organize By Thread on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Always Bcc Myself on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap the Increase Quote Level on/off switch.
(Optional) Tap Signature. When the Signature screen appears, type the message that you want as your email signature, and tap the Mail, Contacts, Calendar button. By default, your signature will be “Sent from my iPad.” Simply delete this message if you want to have no signature.
(Optional) Tap Default Account. When the Default Account screen appears, tap the email account you want to define as the default account.
Press the Home button.
After you've set up an email account, you may later need to change it or delete it altogether. To modify an email account, follow these steps:
From the Home screen, tap Settings. The Settings screen appears.
Tap Mail, Contacts, Calendars. The Mail, Contacts, Calendars settings screen appears.
Tap the email account you want to modify. A window pops up, as shown in Figure 14-7, which displays the features you can turn on or off, such as Calendars or Notes.
(Optional) Tap Account to change settings such as your password or mail server information. Then tap Done when you're finished.
(Optional) Tap the big red Delete Account button to remove the email account from your iPad. Tap Done when you're finished.
Since you can set up multiple email accounts, consider creating one account for work and a second one for personal use. That way, you won't accidentally send a flippant message about your vacation to your boss or a serious message about work to your nine-year-old nephew.
After you've set up one or more email accounts, consider customizing your signature to display or advertise your website, your business, or your own unique skills. For example, your signature could publicize your line of work.
If email is important to you, you can read and write messages on your iPad and never lose contact with anybody. Now all you have to worry about is giving out your email address only to those people you trust. Otherwise you'll risk getting overrun with unsolicited messages.