Email Explained

Email has revolutionised communication - it is now easier and faster than ever to contact people all over the world. However it is all too easy for email to take over your life rather than make it easier.

Purple Cloud's email service offers the flexibility and functionality that you need to ensure that email is a help, not a hindrance.

What do I need?

You will need a domain name for your email - the domain is the part after the @ sign in your email addresses. By having a whole domain, you can have an unlimited number of email addresses. For example, if your email domain name is example.co.uk, you can have addresses like john@example.co.uk, jane.smith@example.co.uk, sales@example.co.uk, and so on.

You have three choices when it comes to getting a domain name for your email:

1. Register a new domain - from as little as £7.50 you can have your very own domain name, giving you memorable and professional looking email addresses. Click here for more information on registering domain names with Purple Cloud.
2. If you have already registered a domain name, you can transfer it to us for use with your email service. Click here for more information.
3. If you do not wish to register a domain name, we can provide you with a Purple Cloud subdomain free of charge - for example, smith.purplecloud.net, giving you email addresses like john@smith.purplecloud.net.

Once you have chosen your domain name, you need to decide what features you require - read on to find out what these features are.

Each of our packages includes a different mix of features and are priced accordingly, but if none of our packages are quite right then you can upgrade them to create your own customised package. Click here for details of our packages and here for upgrades.

What can an email address do?

You can configure different addresses on your domain to do different things. Here are the options:

Mailbox

A mailbox is a final destination for an email. Emails sent to a mailbox are stored on a mail server until your retrieve them - so it's like a letter box. If you have a web based email account (like Hotmail or GMail) then this is a mailbox.

You can access a mailbox using an email application on your computer such as Outlook Express or Thunderbird. Alternatively you can use our webmail service to send and receive your emails through a web browser, giving you access to your messages when on the move.

Redirect

A redirect takes an email sent to it and sends it on to another address.

For example, you may have an email address provided by your ISP such as john.smith@myisp.com. You can configure an address using your domain name, such as john@example.co.uk, which redirects to your ISP address. An advantage of this is that if you change ISP (and therefore lose that address), you can simply reconfigure john.smith@example.co.uk to redirect to your new email address and not need to tell all of your friends and family about the new address.

Mail Group

This is similar to a redirect, except that it can redirect messages to more than one email address.

For example, if you have a sales team of three people, you can have all emails sent to sales@example.co.uk be sent to these three people - john@example.co.uk, jane@example.co.uk and chris@example.co.uk.

Autoresponder

An autoresponder sends a response to all emails sent to it, instantly and automatically. The response can even include file attachments.

A popular use of an autoresponder is to send an "out of office" message when you are away from work to inform people emailing you when you will be back, and/or to give an alternative contact address or telephone number.

A single email address can be configured to use several of the above options - for example, an address could be a mailbox and also have an autoresponder associated with it.

Mailing Lists

Our email service also allows you to setup mailing lists on your domain, powered by the popular Mailman list management system. People can subscribe to the list to receive all messages sent to it - ideal for clubs, sports teams or discussion groups.

There are dozens of options available to configure how the list works - e.g. who can send messages to it, welcome messages, etc. Messages are automatically archived and made available via the web for members to read.

What about spam and viruses?

All Purple Cloud mailboxes include spam filtering and anti-virus options.

Emails detected as being spam (you can configure the sensitivity) can be automatically deleted, or just marked as SPAM in the subject line to help you filter them in your email application.

Emails containing a virus are cleaned before they are delivered to you, removing the risk to your computer. We do however recommend that customers run their own anti-virus software on their computers for added protection against email and all other types of virus.

What about my website?

If you also require a website for your domain name, check out our Web Hosting services - all of our web hosting plans include email functionality as well.

Alternatively our email packages include web forwarding functionality, allowing you to point the website for your email domain at an existing website. Click here for more information.