In this article, you will learn how to add an email account in cPanel. There are several hundred thousand websites online that have cPanel in the backend. Many of those websites belong to writers, artists, musicians, and other creatives. There are pros and cons to having your email hosted on the same server as your website. I have one personal email account with a cloud service, but I have also successfully maintained several email addresses on different cPanel accounts for many years.

I’ve included several images to give you an idea what to look for. Understand that web hosts sometimes have their own layout for the control panel, so the exact appearance of the cPanel controls may look a bit different than those in my images. However, the same settings should be there. Just start by finding the email section.

Add an email account in cPanel

Usually the first icon in the email section is labeled Email Accounts. Click that icon to open the page where you can see existing accounts or add others. There will be other icons in that area including forwarders, auto responders,  filtering, and more.

Click email accounts

If you have existing email accounts, perhaps one that your web host created for you, they will be listed here. If there are no pre-existing accounts, you will just see an area with a search box.

Look for the “create” button.

Just above the list of current addresses, there is a button, often orange, that says +Create. (If you have no pre-existing email addresses, just look for the +Create button.

Fill in your chosen email user name and password.

cPanel will ask you for a username and password. You will fill in the first part of the address – the part that comes before the @ symbol. For most cPanel web hosts, the entire email address will be what you fill in for the username when you connect your address to your email software on your phone or computer.

You will have to provide a strong password. For most web hosts, a scoring system is used to determine if the password you want to use is strong enough. The system will tell you if you need a stronger password.

Connect your email software to your new email account.

Once you add an email account in cPanel, you’ll need to use cPanel’s webmail feature or add the account to Apple Mail, Thunderbird, EmClient, Outlook, or any other email client or software. I would recommend you add it to your mail client on your computer or other device for the best experience.

Go back to the email screen in cPanel and click the email accounts icon as you did in the second step above. Now, you will see your new address there in the bottom half of the screen. It will either be the only one there if it was the first mail account that has been created on your hosting account, or it will be added to the list of pre-existing account.

In either case, find your email address and follow straight across that row until you see “Connect Devices.” Depending on the version of cPanel your web host uses, this button may be labeled slightly different, but it will be similar.

Once that screen is open you will see instructions for setting up your email in your device as secure or not secure. I would recommend you use the secure settings. Pay attention to the port numbers and be certain you enter them correctly.

You can set your email account up in your computer or device as an IMAP or POP3 account. IMAP retains your email on the server so that it is accessible from any device so long as it is set up properly. POP3, in most cases, downloads the email to your device or computer when you open the email and is preventing it being accessible across devices. If you open an email on one device, it will not be available on another device, even when you have both devices connected to the same server.

If you want accessibility between devices, be sure you select IMAP.

Depending upon the features and allowances your web host offers for your particular account, you can have any number of email accounts. For example, if you wish, you can have one address dedicated to receiving messages from your website when a visitor uses your contact form. You can have a different one dedicated to your product order system. You can have separate addresses for each person in your organization. All of them are set up using the same method.

If your web host allows 25 email accounts on your hosting level, you can use all 25 of them as I described. Most hosts allow a few email accounts on lower tier hosting and progressively more as you move to higher and more powerful tiers.