Welcome to setting up a mail relay with BT
If your broadband is with BT and your email address they gave you takes the form someone@btconnect.com you are signed up to BT BUSINESS and are in the correct place for advice on getting your domain's email working with a BT Broadband connection.
My email is sales@calcouk.com and if I try to send email via btconnect (in Outlook MacMail Thunderbird etc) I will rceive an error. This is because BT DO NOT ALLOW unauthorised traffic through their system unless it conmes via a system called a MAIL RELAY. BT's mail relay looks something linke this : mail.btconnect.com However you cannot just plug this address into Outlook and expect it to work - you must FIRST ASK BT's permission to do so, or activate the permission via your BT control panel.
QUOTE FROM BT WEBSITE : To set up mail relay please contact BT SUPPORT on 0845 600 7020 and request to have mail relay set up for you. Once your request has been received, our agents will verify that you are the rightful owner of the domain name before activating mail relay on your account. Please note: If the domain name is registered in a different name from your BT Business primary account name you need to send BT proof that you are entitled to use it:
- a copy of the domain name registration certificate
- a copy of the invoice from the domain name registrar
- permission from the domain name owner provided on company headed paper.
Once you have gained BT's permission, you can move to stage 2,
Setting up Outlook and your email to work with a non BT hosted domain name :-
REMEMBER : Before you can use a third-party domain name with the BT Business mail servers, you need to set up mail relay as above. Once you have done this you can configure your email client to send email via BT’s platform. The following explains this in the context of Microsoft Outlook but you can apply it to other commercial email clients too.
Set up a new email account with your third party domain host in the format you@yourdomain.co.uk.
Make a note of your user name and password once created.
From the Tools menu, select E-mail Accounts.
The E-mail Accounts wizard is displayed.
Select Add a new e-mail account and click on Next.
Step two of the wizard is displayed.
Select the POP3 server type and click on Next.
Enter the following and click on Next:
User Information
Enter your name and your email address.
Logon Information
Enter the user name and password of your third party domain host, which you previously noted down.
Server Information
As the incoming mail server enter mail.yourdomain.co.uk and as the outgoing mail server enter smtp.btconnect.com.
For example:
Click on the More Settings button.
Display the Outgoing Server page and check the My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication box.
Select the Log on using option and enter your BT Business user name and password.
Click on OK to return to the E-mail Accounts wizard.
Click on Next and then on Finish.
If you are having a hard time contacting BT - Try some of these other numbers here >