Secure Email Settings

If you read your Hay email inside Gmail

Gmail’s “Check mail from other accounts” feature collects your Hay mail for you. Two changes are coming that affect how this works:

• December 1, 2026 (Hay): many of these connections are not encrypted, so your password is being sent as readable text. On December 1 we are switching off unencrypted connections for good.
• January 2027 (Google): Google is retiring “Check mail from other accounts” completely. After that, Gmail will stop collecting your Hay mail no matter how it is set up. Read Google’s announcement.

Your messages won’t be lost either way. They’ll be waiting on our server. But to keep your Hay mail arriving, it needs a new home before January.

Our recommendation: add your Hay address as its own account

Add your Hay email as an additional account in the mail app you already use: the Gmail app or Mail app on your phone or tablet, or Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail on your computer. Your Hay mail then shows up right alongside your Gmail, connects securely, and isn’t affected by either change. If you check mail on more than one device, add it on each one.

When the app asks, choose IMAP (sometimes called “Other” or “Manual setup”) and use the settings below. Once it’s working, you can remove the old “Check mail from other accounts” entry in Gmail so you don’t see messages twice.

Or use Hay webmail

Check your mail in any web browser at mail.hay.net. There’s nothing to install or set up.

Staying on Gmail’s collection until January? Update it before December 1

If you’d like to keep things as they are for now, this keeps Gmail collecting your Hay mail safely until Google ends the feature. On a computer, in Gmail:

1. Click the gear icon in the top right, then See all settings.
2. Open the Accounts and Import tab.
3. Under Check mail from other accounts, find your @hay.net address and click edit info.
4. Change the POP Server to mail.hay.net and the Port to 995.
5. Tick Always use a secure connection (SSL) when retrieving mail.
6. Click Save Changes.

Important: use “edit info”. Do not delete the account and add it again. Google no longer allows new accounts to be added, so a deleted one cannot be put back.

If it asks for your username, enter only the part of your address before the @ sign, not the whole address.

If you use a mail program or app

This covers programs such as Outlook, Apple Mail and Thunderbird, and the mail apps on phones and tablets. Every program is a little different, so there are two ways to do this.

We’ll do it with you. Call us at 519-236-4500 and we’ll change the settings with you over the phone. This is the easiest option, especially if you read your mail on more than one device.

Or change it yourself. Open your mail program’s account settings and use the settings below.

IMAP or POP?

If your program is set to POP, use port 995 for incoming mail. If it’s set to IMAP, use 993. If you’re not sure which one you have, give us a call. Switching from POP to IMAP is worth doing anyway: POP keeps your mail on one device only, while IMAP keeps your phone, tablet and computer in step.

Secure settings for @hay.net email

• Username: the part of your address before the @ sign, not the whole address.
• Password: your current Hay email password. It is not changing.
• Outgoing mail requires authentication: turn on “My outgoing server requires authentication” and make sure your username and password are filled in for the outgoing server too, even if the program says they’re optional.