IMAP is a type of retrieval for your email. When someone sends you an email it is picked up by your hosting account, and it stays there until you retrieve it. To retrieve it you would use an email program like Thunderbird, Outlook or Outlook Express. Please read the Help files in the email program of your choice, to help you with any questions you may have about the actual program and program settings. When you add email accounts to the email program you need the following information:

• Your email address
• Your mail server name which will be eg mail.dotcomkiosk.co.uk or mail.yourdomainname.com (and swap yourdomainname with your own domain name)

When you are setting your mail up you'll have a choice of using POP3 or IMAP to retrieve your email. What does this mean? POP3 will take your emails off your hosting account and put them on your laptop or computer.

IMAP will only retrieve a copy of the email but it will leave your email intact on your hosting account. That means if you use IMAP then your email will continue to grow and grow. Eventually it will use up a lot of your hosting account availalable space and you can do one of the following:

• Change your settings to POP3
• Delete some of your old emails, and therefore reduce the amount of space you are using on your hosting account
• Buy more hosting space to store all of your emails

We would strongly recommend changing from IMAP to POP3. This can be done in your email program settings.