Setting email up under Mac OS 9 and earlier has become much more difficult with modern security standards, however it is still possible. To setup an email account you will need your own domain name, email host, and an SMTP delivery service.

Prerequisites

Domain Name

A domain name is a reference pointer that is typically attached to a website. As an example, 'example.com' is a domain name. In this guide you will need to purchase a domain name which typically cost between $10-$30/year. If you don't need a .com domain you can get free domains from Freenom. For the purposes of this guide It is not necessary to connect your domain to a website. It's not needed but you can point your domain name to a website at any time in the future if needed.

A domain name can be registered at a domain registrar such as Namecheap or Freenom.

Email Hosting

You will also need to use an email hosting service. An email host is a service that lets you create an email account (bob@yourdomain.com), stores your emails on their servers and sends your emails to other addresses.

I have chosen to use MXRoute because it's one of the cheaper email hosting options, it's easy to use, and they provide excellent service and support. The beginner plan costs $30USD/year which lets you use an unlimited number of domain names, and offers 10GB storage. They also offer a lifetime plan with a one-off payment option.

SMTP Delivery

SMTP is the protocol used for sending an email to another email address. MXRoute and most other email hosts use servers that enforce strict security protocols for SMTP (sending emails) on their servers. This means that you will be able to receive emails, but not send them because Outlook Express doesn't understand the newer security protocols.

SMTP2Go are and excellent choice to work around this issue and can handle all of the outgoing messages for your email account.

Note: If you're going to use email under Mac OS 9 you must be aware that all email transmissions are insecure. There is currently no way to implement modern security protocols with this system.

Services Setup

1. First you need to register a domain name. You can do this at Namecheap or any other domain registrar
    
2. Next create an account at SMTP2Go
    
3. After logging into SMTP2Go's website, go to Sending > Verified Senders in the sidebar, then add your sender domain (the domain name you registered earlier).
    
4. You will be given three CNAME records that you need to add to your domain's DNS settings. Go to Namecheap, or whichever domain registrar you used to register the domain name with, and add these records to your domain's DNS records.
   
   After you've added the DNS records, go back to SMTP2Go and click the Verify button to check you've set them up correctly. Once they're verified they should look like the image below.
    
5. Go back to your SMTP2Go account and navigate to Sending > SMTP Users within the sidebar to add a user. I recommend making your username and password the same as what your email account will be, this helps to avoid confusion when setting things up within Outlook.
   
   Example:
   username: bob,
   password: the same password used for your email account
    
6. Create an account at MXRoute or any other email hosting service - the following steps assume you have chosen MXRoute
    
7. On MXRoute create your first email account and take note of the following:
   - Your new email address
   - Your password for the email address
   - The server used for the mail account e.g. blizzard.mxrouting.net
    
8. When you create an email account on MXRoute, you will be given the DNS records that need to be added to your domain on your domain registrar's DNS records (as explained in step four). Depending on what plan you signed up for with MXRoute you may be given multiple records. When setting up my account I only needed the DKIM key which is a TXT record.
   
   An example looks like this:
   Name: x._domainkey
   Type: TXT
   Value: "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=SBGOSEOBUGSIH#@&TGHKSKJBEILF......"
   TTL: 3600

Outlook Express Setup

After completing the above you can now set up the email account in Outlook Express.

1. Go to the accounts preferences and create a new account. Make sure you select the option to Configure Manually and to choose the POP protocol for receiving mail. Enter all of the relevant personal information (Account name, Name, Email address)
    
2. Receiving mail settings:
   - Enter your email address as the Account ID
   - Enter the server name you were given from MXRoute as the POP server e.g. blizzard.mxrouting.net
   - Enter the password for your email account which was set on MXRoute.
    
3. Under Receiving mail settings click the advanced options button at the bottom of this section.
   Make sure all options are unchecked and the default POP port is set to 110
    
4. Sending mail settings:
   - Enter the server name provided by SMTP2Go e.g. mail.smtp2go.com
    
5. Under the Sending mail section click the advanced options button
   - Make sure SMTP service requires secure connection (SSL) is unchecked
   - Check the option Override default SMTP port and set it to '587'
   - Check the option SMTP server requires authentication and log on using the username and password set in SMTP2Go
   - Make sure the account ID is your email account ID/username (not your full email address).
    
6. Save your account settings and test both sending and receiving an email within Outlook.

Hopefully everything should work!

This guide was checked and updated on 28th March 2023