Email addresses explained

1. What's a Default Email Address?

All accounts are given a default email address after signing up.

Unless you ask for something else, it'll look like this: firstname@username.plus.com.

For example, if your name was Andrew and your account username was smith, your default email address would be andrew@smith.plus.com.

On some older accounts the default address may look like this: username@username.plus.com, so in the above example the default address would be smith@smith.plus.com.

To check the default email address you'll need to connect to our mail servers with an email program or webmail and your account username and password (the ones you use to log in to this website). Check our Email Setup Guides for step-by-step help.

Default email addresses also have a postmaster alias linked to them.

2. What's a Mailbox?

A mailbox is an email address that stores messages in its own separate inbox. Each mailbox has its own username and password.

All accounts get one mailbox to start with (the default mailbox, which receives mail sent to the Default Email Address). Use Manage My Mail to create more mailboxes if you need them.

Using the example in section 1, if you created a new mailbox called robert, the email address would be robert@smith.plus.com

To check an additional mailbox, you'll need to connect to our mail server with an email program or webmail and your mailbox username and password (see below if you're not sure what these are). Check our Email Setup Guides for step-by-step help with this.

A mailbox username looks like this: account username+mailbox name. In the example above, the mailbox username would be smith+robert. When a new mailbox is created, we'll send an email to confirm the username. The mailbox password is chosen when creating the mailbox.

3. What's an Alias?

An alias is an email address that links to another email address on your account. Mail sent to an alias address will be directed to linked address.

All new accounts have a postmaster alias linked to their Default Email Address. Using the example in section 1, a default address of andrew@smith.plus.com would have a postmaster alias of postmaster@smith.plus.com.

Use Manage My Mail to create new aliases. Subscription account holders can link as many aliases to a mailbox as they like. Free account holders can link a maximum of 5.

To collect email sent to an alias, you'll need to connect to our mail servers (with the username and password for the linked mailbox) with an email program or Webmail. Check our Email Setup Guides for step-by-step help.

An alias can only be linked to another address on your account. To link to an email address hosted by another company (e.g. Gmail or Hotmail) you'd need to use a Redirect.

4. What's a Redirect?

A Redirect is similar to an Alias, but rather than link to an address on your account, redirects can link to addresses hosted by other providers. Use Manage My Mail to create as many Redirects as you need.

5. What's a Catch All?

Normally, email sent to a mailbox that doesn't exist is blackholed (meaning the sender wouldn't be told and the recipient wouldn't receive anything).

Using the example from section 1, if your email address was andrew@smith.plus.com and someone sent mail to andrwe@smith.plus.com by mistake, the email would be lost.

If you switch on Catch All, email addressed to ANYTHING@username.plus.com will be sent to a mailbox of your choosing. It wouldn't matter what's before the @ symbol, if the part after the @ (username.plus.com) matches your account then you'll receive the mail.

Using our previous example, if your email address was andrew@smith.plus.com and Catch all was on and linked to the default mail address, you could send mail to andrew@smith.plus.com, spam@smith.plus.com, hello@smith.plus.com or anythingelseyoucanthinkof@smith.plus.com and it would all arrive in the andrew@smith.plus.com mailbox.

If you don't want to setup loads of mailboxes, aliases or redirects, Catch All is a good solution. Be careful though, spammers target random addresses in the hope that messages will be delivered - by allowing the catch all to pick up mail that would otherwise be dumped; you're increasing the chances of receiving spam.

Catch All is turned off on new accounts, but it's easy to turn on if you need it.

How to add a 'Catch All' address

1. Go to http://email.plus.net/ in your web browser
2. In Manage My Mail, click the Catch All tab
3. Change the Catch All Status to On
4. Choose the mailbox you want Catch All mail to be sent to
5. Click Submit

This page last updated 28th October 2009