How to Create an Email Account in cPanel?

In cPanel, open the Email section, click Email Accounts, then click Create. Pick the domain, type the part that goes before the @ in Username, set a password, and click Create at the bottom of the form.

Before you start

• You need your cPanel login. If you do not have it to hand, it lives with your hosting product in the Hostworld client area at portal.hostworld.uk.
• For mail to actually arrive, the domain needs to be using our nameservers: ns1.serverworld.uk, ns2.serverworld.uk, ns3.serverworld.uk and ns4.serverworld.uk. If it is still pointed at another provider, create the mailbox now but expect mail to keep going to the old place until the nameservers change.
• Decide the exact address first. You cannot rename an email account or change its address after creating it, and you cannot use the word cpanel as the username.

Step 1: Open Email Accounts

Log in to cPanel, find the Email section on the home page, and click Email Accounts. Then click Create.

If your cPanel looks different to a screenshot you have seen elsewhere, ignore the layout and look for the same destination. cPanel moves tools between releases and there is a newer goal-based interface in circulation alongside the familiar one. The outcome is the same: Email Accounts, then Create.

Step 2: Enter the address

Pick the domain from the Domain menu, then type the local part (the bit before the @) into Username.

If there is no Domain menu, nothing is broken. cPanel hides it when the account only has one domain on it.

Step 3: Choose how the password gets set

There are two routes and they behave differently.

• Set password now. Type a password, or click Generate for a random strong one. Use this when the mailbox is yours.
• Send login link to alternate email address. cPanel emails login information to an address you specify. Use this when the mailbox is for someone else. The mailbox is not usable until that person follows the link and sets a password, so do not hand out the address before they have.

Step 4: Set a quota before you click Create

Next to Optional Settings, click Edit Settings. The section is collapsed by default, and readers who skip it end up on whatever the server default happens to be.

Under Storage Space, enter a real figure in MB rather than choosing Unlimited. Unlimited does not mean free space: the mailbox draws on your hosting account's disk allocation, and one mailbox that grows without limit can eat the allowance and bounce mail for every other address on the domain.

Leave Send welcome email with instructions to set up a mail client ticked. That message is where the mail client settings for your account come from. Then click Create.

Step 5: Test it, and know how to undo it

Back on the Email Accounts list, click Check Email next to the new address to open webmail, or go to the webmail address for your domain on port 2096. Send a message in and out.

To undo: if you got the address wrong, create the correct one and change the password on the wrong one so nobody can use it. Only delete it once you are certain. Deletion is done from Manage on that address, and it removes the stored mail permanently with no recovery. Back up anything you need first, and remove the address from any mail clients and website contact forms, otherwise you will get connection errors afterwards.

If it does not work

• Mail still goes to the old provider. cPanel keeps a per-domain routing setting under Email > Email Routing, and it can override what you assume DNS is doing. Do not switch it to Local Mail Exchanger while mail is working elsewhere: that makes our server accept the mail and drop it into the empty new mailbox, with the sender seeing a successful delivery. Change nameservers and MX first, then confirm routing is Local.
• Senders get "Mailbox quota exceeded". Raise the quota first. Click Manage on the account, put a larger value in the allocated storage field, and save. It applies immediately. Avoid the Email Disk Usage tool unless you have a backup, because its deletions are permanent.
• You have hit a limit on mailboxes or quota size. That is a plan and server setting rather than a cPanel rule. Open a support ticket and we will check the account.

What next

For the full picture, including routing during a mail migration and how MX records fit in, read our email guides. If the domain is not yet pointed at us, that is the thing to fix before anything else on your Hostworld web hosting account will receive mail.