Summary
In September 2021, Network Solutions sent notifications to customers regarding an SSL certificate change that would impact Apple device users. The change was to take place on 6 Oct 2021, so customers were urged to update their email clients. This document offers instructions on how to setup your email clients to accommodate the change. A copy of the Network Solutions notification is shared further down on this page.
It’s helpful to review this entire page to get an overview of the process before starting. Some additional prerequisites and suggestions are described in Task #1.
These instructions are intentionally lengthy in order to be thorough and also provide extra descriptions and details helpful to novice users.
These instructions are written to be as accurate and clear as possible, but please know that the information is provided here voluntarily and you are responsible for the outcome.
UPDATE: 12 Feb 2024 — General Mail Client Settings
The current email client settings for Network Solutions are:
- Username: Your Full Email Address
- Password: Your email account password
- Incoming Mail Server: netsol-imap-oxcs.hostingplatform.com
- Ports: IMAP (993) or POP3 (995)
- Outgoing Mail Server: netsol-smtp-oxcs.hostingplatform.com
- Port: Start TLS (587) ‘Preferred Port/Protocol’
- SSL (465) ‘if your client does not support Start TLS’
The remainder of this document contains some additional instructions and settings. The latest documentation and support is available at nsmailsettings.com [View]
UPDATE: 17 Apr 2023 — Your Feedback Requested
For many months, this web page has been flooded with visitors from around the world. This suggests there continues to be an unmet support and documentation need regarding Network Solutions email.
There has been much positive feedback to this page from people who have found it helpful. I really want to make sure that everyone finds the email answers they need. If you have any suggestions for improving these instructions, or setup steps for specific software or devices, please contact me.
UPDATE: 17 Oct 2022 — iPhone Setup
For those only needing assistance with setting up Network Solutions email on iPhone, here are the revised steps. These instructions assume you have removed any non-working configuration, or are setting up for the first time. You will need to know your email password. These instructions were written for the latest version of iOS.
- On your iPhone, go to Settings.
- Select Mail from the top-level listed options.
- Within Mail, select Accounts
- If you are trying to repair a non-working account setup, you may want to remove the problematic account before continuing. Tap on the account and choose Delete after confirming there are no unsaved drafts that need to be saved.
- Tap on “Add Account”
- From the list of service providers choose “Other” at the bottom of the list.
- On the Add Account page, choose “Add Mail Account” at the top.
- On the New Account page, provide your Name, email, password, and a description like NetSol or something short to describe the account.
- On the next screen, your name, email and description will show. Complete the requested information. For User Name provide your email address. For Host Name provide: netsol-imap-oxcs.hostingplatform.com
- The User Name and Password are optional for the Outgoing Mail Server. Entering them may help with sending emails.
- You will briefly see a screen appear with a list of entries that should all have a green checkmark on the right side of the screen. Then you will end up on the IMAP options page with Mail enabled and Notes disabled — as represented by a toggle switch for each setting. Leave these at the default settings.
- Your email should now be setup. You can go to the Mail program to confirm this.
If your mailbox folder list in the Mail program does not seem to display properly, it’s possible you will need to go to Advanced mail settings and set the IMAP Path Prefix to INBOX using these steps:
- On your iPhone, go to Settings.
- Select Mail from the top-level listed options.
- Within Mail, select Accounts.
- Tap on the account you need to modify.
- Under IMAP where you see Account and the email address, tap on the email address.
- The main account settings will be displayed.
- At the bottom of the page, tap on Advanced
- On the Advanced page, toward the bottom, you will see “IMAP Path Prefix” and you can tap on that to enter INBOX as your path prefix.
- Return, and press “Done” wherever given the option.
These instructions are written to be as accurate and clear as possible, but please know that the information is provided here voluntarily and you are responsible for the outcome.
UPDATE: 28 Jul 2022
As of July 2022, the method described below for setting up an email Profile on Apple Mac computers no longer works. Instead, follow these instructions.
- From the Apple menu, go to System Preferences.
- Click on Internet Accounts from the main System Preferences page.
- Choose to add a new Mail account.
- Put in your name, email, and password.
- You will then get a pop-up box
- Email Address will already be filled in
- For User Name, enter your email address.
- Account Type should be IMAP
- For Incoming Mail Server, enter:
netsol-imap-oxcs.hostingplatform.com - For Outgoing Mail Server, enter:
netsol-imap-oxcs.hostingplatform.com
- Click the blue Sign In button.
In the past, you would get a certificate error, but now with the new mail server address above, your email should work and show up in the Apple Mail program. This new information is based on a call today with Network Solutions support.
Note that some software, like Microsoft Outlook, lets you customize the ports used for communications. If you are having trouble sending emails, you may try setting the SMTP port to 587 instead of the default of 25.
The rest of the information on this page is still applicable.
TASK #1 — Before Starting
These steps assume you have been using IMAP settings on your email client, and that you have been using the proper folders on the server. In other words, all of your sent emails are saved on the server in the Sent Messages or Sent folder. The inbox on the server should also have all of your received emails. This is how most email clients would automatically be configured, but in some cases sent emails are saved on your local device and these would be lost when you remove your account from the device.
- Check Emails on Server — To double-check the email folders on the server, you can go to mail.yourwebsitename.com and login with your email and password. Use the web interface to check all your folders on the server and make sure they contain all your emails. Note that you will type the name of your website in the example above using dot com or dot org or whatever your site name uses.
- For iPhone and iPad — To check the email folder assignments on your device, for iOS (iPhone or iPad) go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > tap on the account name > under IMAP tap on the Account name > at the bottom tap on Advanced > under Mailbox Behaviors make sure all mailboxes are on the server and not set to save on your phone. If they are set to your phone, you may want to forward those messages to yourself and save them.
- For Mac Computers — To check the email folder assignments on your Mac, open the Mail program. From the Mail menu, choose Preferences > tap on Accounts > tap on the Mailbox Behaviors tab > make sure the Mailboxes are set to save to folders on the server.
- POP — Email client software typically synchronizes with the server (email service) using something called IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol). There is an old email standard called POP (Post Office Protocol) or POP3 that downloads your emails to your computer and doesn’t synchronize. If you remove a POP account from your computer, the folders and emails will go also and you may lose emails that only exist on your computer and are no longer on the server. Before deleting your email account in your mail client, be sure that your email client is not setup using POP. This doesn’t apply to emails store in local folders outside of the account folder structure.
TASK #2 — Backup Emails
If you are confident that all of your emails are on the server as described above, you could skip this task.
Apple Mail allows you to create a folder system to have emails stored locally on your computer. These folders (called Mailboxes) can have subfolders as well. You can create local folders for long-term archiving of really old emails that you don’t want left on the server of the email service provider.
Instead of moving groups of emails to your local folders, instead use the Copy To option under the Message menu in the Mail program. If you copy items the process should be faster and more reliable.
Know that this process may seem to complete quickly, but additional tasks will process in the background such as copying large attachments. So, keep the Mail program open, perhaps overnight, and then after you are sure that the emails and attachments have copied to your local folders you could delete them from the server.
TASK #3 — Remove Email Account on Device
The steps for removing mail accounts on your devices will depend on how they were installed.
PROFILE ACCOUNTS. If you have email accounts on your device that were setup recently using a Profile, then you just need to remove the profile from your device.
- For Mac Computers — On Apple Mac computers, this is found under the Apple menu by going to System Preferences > Profiles > and then removing the profile(s). When the email profile is removed, the mail account will be removed from your computer.
- For iPhone and iPad — On Apple iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) this is found under Settings > General > Profiles. You can delete the profile to remove the email account.
OLDER ACCOUNTS. If the account was setup without using the Profile feature, perhaps a long time ago, then you’ll need to remove it as described below.
- For iPhone and iPad — To remove the mail account on your device, for iOS (iPhone or iPad) go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > tap on the account name > choose Delete Account. If the account was setup using a Profile, then you’ll be notified that you need to remove the Profile.
- For Mac Computers — To remove the mail account from your Mac, from the Apple Menu, choose System Preferences > choose Internet Accounts > select the account you want to remove and click on the minus symbol. If the account was setup using a Profile, then you’ll be notified that you need to remove the Profile.
TASK #4 — Setup Email Account on Device
Network Solutions uses Profiles for setting up mail accounts on Apple devices. The Profile will configure the mail client with the correct settings for the mail account. This includes the IMAP and SMPT server settings and ports, as well as the secure certificates needed.
There are a few settings that are not configured automatically and those are indicated here in the instructions as well.
APPLE MAC COMPUTERS — To setup the account on a Mac computer, follow these steps:
- Close the Apple Mail email client software before continuing.
- Go to mail.yourwebsitename.com/ios (use your website name where indicated)
- Provide your email address and press the red Get Started button.
- The Profile will be downloaded to your downloads folder and you will see a “Congratulations” message.
- Open the downloaded Profile file.
- A notification message should show up in the top right corner of your display stating: “Profile installation. Review the profile in System Preferences if you want to install it.”
- Go to the Apple menu by clicking the Apple icon in the top left corner of your screen.
- Click on System Preferences.
- In System Preferences, go to Profiles which should show up as an icon in the lower right corner of the System Preferences window.
- In the System Preferences > Profiles page, in the left column under “Downloaded” you will see the recently downloaded Profile listed.
- Click the Install button in the upper right of the Profiles window.
- Provide your email password and click the Install button.
- At this point the email account will be partially configured. This is where most instructions end.
- Go back to the main window for System Preferences.
- Click on Internet Accounts.
- Select the new account in the left column.
- For Description the entry will probably show the email address. You will probably want to enter a short description that will be easy to recognize later in the Apple Mail program.
- For Name, type in your name as you would like recipients to see as the sender.
- Password should be already entered from earlier when you installed the Profile.
- Next to Notes you may want to remove a checkmark if there is one. The macOS and iOS Notes apps work best with iCloud and don’t usually work well with third-party email services.
- Click on the Advanced button.
- The Hostname should have the correct host entered so you can skip that. It is probably entered as mail6.hostingplatform.com but it might be something else like mail1.hostingplatform.com so you should follow the guidelines for your specific situations.
- The Path Prefix will probably be empty. It should be INBOX. Enter INBOX and press the OK button.
- Start the Apple Mail program. You should see the email account listed. The inbox and other folders should start populating with all of your emails.
APPLE IOS DEVICES — To setup the account on an iPhone or iPad, follow these steps:
- Go to mail.yourwebsitename.com/ios (use your website name where indicated)
- Provide your email address and press the red Get Started button.
- You will see a message stating: “This website is trying to download a configuration profile. Do you want to allow this?”
- Tap on Allow.
- You will see a message stating: “Profile Downloaded … Review the profile in Settings app if you want to install it.”
- Tap on Close.
- Go to Settings.
- At the top of the Settings options you will see “Profile Downloaded” above the Airplane Mode setting.
- Tap on Profile Downloaded.
- Tap Install in the top right of your screen.
- Enter your passcode if prompted to do so.
- Tap on the Install button.
- Enter your password.
- At this point the email account will be partially configured. This is where most instructions end.
- Start the Mail app on your iPhone or iPad. This will perform the initial synchronization with the account which includes making folder assignments.
- Go to Settings > Mail > Accounts > select the account > under IMAP tap on the account name > at the bottom of the page tap on Advanced.
- Review the mailbox folder assignments to make sure they are configured for the correct folders on the server.
- When done, tap Account in the upper left corner.
- Tap Done in the upper right corner.
- Tap Account in the upper left corner.
- Tap Mail in the upper left corner.
- Tap Settings in the upper left corner.
- You will be back at the main Settings list.
- The setup should be complete now.
TASK #5 – Email Folders
You may want to test the Network Solutions webmail portal to make sure the folders your Apple devices are using are the same as the webmail interface and any Windows mail clients.
Some email software (mail clients) will create folders the moment you configure an email account on your device. So, if the necessary folders are not present, they will be created. Different devices and different email programs have different default names for folders.
- Inbox
- Sent (or Sent Messages)
- Drafts (or Draft)
- Junk (or Spam)
- Trash
- Archive
As you can see in the list above, there can be different folder names depending on the email system and different email programs you use. Ideally, when you setup a device, it will use existing folders rather than creating new ones.
If you end up with multiple folders for similar purposes, such as Draft and Drafts, it will create some confusion. Emails will show up in different folders depending on what system they were created with. To have consistency and continuity between devices, you’ll want to make sure they are all configured to use the same folders.
FEEDBACK
If you have questions or comments, please use the Contact page. This page will be updated and improved based on your feedback. Thanks!
About This Document
This document was originally posted on 10 Oct 2022. On 31 Mar 2022 the following text was added to the introduction: “These instructions are intentionally lengthy in order to be thorough and also provide extra descriptions and details helpful to novice users.”
Network Solutions Notification of Email Service Change
Below is the email from Network Solutions notifying customers of the email change and steps required to have continued email access. Unfortunately, during this same period of time, there have been ongoing repeated fraudulent phishing emails sent to Network Solutions customers. The fraudulent emails use the same font, wording, colors, and logos as the legitimate Network Solutions emails. So, it’s likely that many Network Solutions customers have been deceived by the scam emails. Always be sure not to click on any links in any emails asking you to “click here to login.” Instead go directly to the known official website.
Security Update for Apple Device Users
Dear Valued Customer,
As a part of security processes, the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate in place to ensure your emails are securely delivered will expire on October 6th 2021. Prior to this date, we will install a new SSL certificate. As a function of this update, Apple device users will need to update their mail account settings to continue receiving email.
This notice is in regards to email on yourwebsitename.com domain.
What does this mean for you?
For Apple device (Mac, iPhone, or iPad) users only, additional steps will be required to configure your email client so that it recognizes and trusts the new SSL certificate.
Before October 6th 2021, Apple device users will need to:
1. Remove your email account from your device. *Note: Prior to removing your account, verify you are not using POP as you may lose content. Refer to our Help Center below for more information.
2. Setup your email account on your device using the server settings as shown below:
a. Incoming Mail Server: mail6.hostingplatform.com
b. Outgoing Mail Server: mail6.hostingplatform.com
Please visit our Help Center for detailed instructions.
Note: This security update requires action from Apple device users only. If you are using a Windows-based PC or Android device, no action is needed.
At Network Solutions, your account security and accessibility are of primary importance to us. We apologize for this inconvenience and thank you for your continued patronage.
Sincerely,
The Network Solutions Team
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NOTE: Others have reported receiving instructions to enter mail1.hostingplatform.com for their mail server settings. The discrepancy may be because of differences in servers for different customers.
