How To Setup iCloud SMTP Settings: The Complete Guide

Emailing iCloud Mail users gets tricky when not sending from an iCloud account. Legitimate emails get blocked and many emails don’t land in users’ primary inboxes. 

It’s a nightmare to deal with if you’re an email marketer— even with the right business email setup. The most effective solution is using an Apple or iCloud Mail account to send your outreach.

The issue is that iCloud doesn’t have the features for scalable email marketing. If you want to run holistic campaigns with a third-party email tool, you need to understand the iCloud SMTP settings. 

iCloud SMTP Settings for Your Email Client

The proper iCloud SMTP settings are needed to connect an Apple Mail account to an email tool. Without it, your email client can’t send emails via your iCloud Mail account. Here are the iCloud SMTP settings you need to know: 

For the SMTP Username, try the first part of your email address. Instead of [email protected], you can use tonystark as the username. If that doesn’t work, try the full iCloud email address. 

One thing Apple is great at is security. iCloud won’t recommend using your typical iCloud password for every app. You must make an “app-specific” password for your email client. 

During the setup, you may encounter an error message that pops up when using SSL. When that happens, use TLS or STARTTLS. Remember, SMTP is only for sending emails; to receive emails, we need the IMAP settings. 

iCloud IMAP Settings

Unlike other email service providers, iCloud has no POP configurations to receive emails. Instead, you can use IMAP settings and manually configure your email tool’s inbound settings for usage with an iCloud account.  

In 2017, Apple made an update that requires you to enable two-step authentication for your iCloud account and set up an application-specific password to use IMAP. 

How to Configure iCloud SMTP and IMAP for Gmail

The steps needed to configure iCloud SMTP and IMAP differ between ESPs. However, it’s fairly straightforward. You just need to enter the settings and create an app-specific password.

Here’s how it’s done using Gmail:

1. Go to your Gmail account and head to Settings
2. Click the “Accounts and Import” tab
3. Find the “Send mail as” setting and “add another email address”
4. Enter the SMTP settings for iCloud 
5. Confirm the request on your iCloud account

If you see an error that says “Authentication failed. Please check your username/password,” the issue may be due to a lack of an “app-specific” password. 

How to set up an “app-specific” password for iCloud SMTP:

1. Go to your Apple account
2. Enable Two-Factor Authentication 
3. Click on “App-Specific Passwords” 
4. Generate your password 

Use your app-specific password as the login credentials for setting up iCloud SMTP. Gmail will send a confirmation email to your iCloud inbox. Click the link, confirm, and you’ll be good to go. 

You can confirm that the iCloud SMTP setup was successful by looking at your “send mail as” options. A new account should say “mail is sent through:smtp.mail.me.com.”

Unfortunately, Gmail does not support IMAP. It only has POP, which iCloud does not support. The alternative to this is using Gmailify to manage your new IMAP inbox. 

Configuring iCloud SMTP Settings and IMAP for Instantly.ai

You’ll need the right tools to use an iCloud account for email marketing campaigns tailored for Apple Mail users. Instantly offers quick and easy SMTP and IMAP settings. There’s no need for third-party tools and complicated setups. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to Instantly.ai and Get Started with a free account 
2. Go to the “Email Accounts” tab on the left and click on Add New 
3. Click on “Connect Existing Email Accounts” 
4. Choose IMAP/SMTP
5. Enter the iCloud IMAP and SMTP Settings 

You have to create a new app-specific password for Instantly. There’s also no need for manually testing if the IMAP or SMTP works, Instantly does it for you. 

The new iCloud account you added will then show in the Email Accounts tab of your Instantly Dashboard. With Instantly, you can add unlimited email accounts without additional costs. 

The best part is you don’t have to create separate Instantly accounts for different email providers. You get one Master Inbox that handles all emails from all your accounts, whether it’s from Apple, Google, Microsoft, or any other service provider. 

But remember, buying domains requires you to set up your email service. That means setting up domain authentications—DMARC, DKIM, SPF, and Forwarding. If you want to streamline the process, you can try Instantly’s DFY email service setup. 

iCloud SMTP Server Limitations

As with all email service providers, iCloud SMTP has its own set of limitations to prevent abusing their platform and to prevent spam. Here are the limitations you need to consider: 

• Daily sending limit: iCloud caps the emails you send to 1,000 emails daily
• Recipient limit: 500 recipients per individual email
• Personal use only: iCloud’s SMTP server is meant for personal use, not mass emails 

If you need to send bulk emails for newsletters, product promos, or updates, you might be better off using another email service provider. As a rule of thumb, you’d want to limit sending to 50 emails daily per account. 

However, there is potential for hyper-personalized cold emails using iCloud’s SMTP, specifically for Apple users. For example, you can use Instantly B2B Lead Finder to look for leads using iCloud and Apple Mail. 

Since iCloud is great at filtering out spam, there’s a good chance that a hyper-personalized email lands straight in your lead’s Apple Mail. Just ensure that you’re following the best cold email marketing strategies to get the highest possible deliverability and reply rates. 

Key Takeaways

Apple has over 1.46 billion users worldwide. That’s a lot of untapped potential. However, Apple Mail is stingy with the emails they send through. The best solution is to use iCloud’s own SMTP server for email marketing. To recap, here are the SMTP and IMAP settings you need to know. 

• SMTP Host: smtp.mail.me.com
• SMTP Port: 587 SSL
• IMAP Host: imap.mail.me.com
• IMAP Port: 993

Instantly has all the features you need to create holistic, sustainable, and automated cold email campaigns using iCloud’s SMTP. Set up your iCloud SMTP with Instantly today!