How to use mello with Thunderbird, Outlook and other mail apps

The settings

Your username is always your full mello address, and your password is the one you use for the webmail. There are no separate app passwords.

The authentication method is the normal password, sent over the encrypted connection. mello has no POP: choose IMAP, which keeps every device in sync. The same settings are in the webmail, under Settings → Accesses.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird reads mello’s settings on its own, so you only type your address and password.

1. In Thunderbird, open the menu and choose New Account → Email.
2. Enter your name, your mello address and your password, and choose Continue.
3. Thunderbird finds mello’s settings. Choose Done.

Then add your calendars and contacts:

1. In the Calendar tab, add a new calendar On the Network. Enter your mello address as the username and https://mail.mello.mx/ as the location, then choose Find Calendars and subscribe to the ones you want.
2. In the Address Book, add a new CardDAV Address Book, with the same username and location.

Events and contacts sync both ways, with the webmail and your other devices.

Outlook

Outlook adds mello as an IMAP account. In classic Outlook for Windows:

1. Choose File → Add Account and enter your mello address.
2. Open Advanced options, tick Let me set up my account manually, and choose Connect.
3. Choose IMAP, and enter the incoming and outgoing servers from the table above.
4. Enter your password and choose Connect.

The new Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac work the same way: add an account, choose IMAP if asked, and enter the same settings.

Outlook doesn’t speak CalDAV or CardDAV, so it can’t sync mello’s calendars and contacts by itself. There are two ways around it:

• For a calendar you only need to see, publish it from the webmail with a public link and subscribe to that link in Outlook. It’s read-only in Outlook, and anyone with the link can see the events, so keep it to calendars you’d share. See sharing calendars.
• For full sync in classic Outlook on Windows, a free add-in such as CalDav Synchronizer connects Outlook to https://mail.mello.mx/, with your mello address and password.

Any other mail app

Apps such as eM Client, Spark, Mailspring, aerc or mutt all work with mello. Most find nothing on their own, so you enter the settings by hand:

1. Add a new account and choose IMAP (sometimes called “other” or “manual”).
2. Enter the incoming and outgoing servers, ports and security from the table above.
3. Use your full mello address as the username for both, with the same password.

mello marks its Sent, Drafts, Trash, Junk and Archive folders as such, so most apps use them without asking. If an app makes a Sent folder of its own, point it to mello’s Sent in the account settings, so your sent mail shows everywhere. For calendars and contacts, any CalDAV or CardDAV app works with https://mail.mello.mx/.

Filters with ManageSieve

mello’s filters run on the server, in a standard language called Sieve, so they work with every app closed. You set them up in the webmail, under Settings → Auto-reply, next to your vacation reply. See filters and vacation replies.

If you’d rather write Sieve yourself, mello offers ManageSieve on mail.mello.mx, port 4190, with STARTTLS. Thunderbird’s Sieve add-on and other ManageSieve clients connect with your mello address and password.

One thing to know: only one script is active at a time, and the webmail keeps its filters and auto-reply in a script named webmail. If you turn on another script, the webmail’s filters and auto-reply stop working until you save them again in the webmail.

In the terminal

If you live in a terminal, mello has its own command-line client and a full-screen one too. See mello in the terminal.