Troubleshoot: Pairing your Email with FreeAgent

In this article, we'll try to tackle some of the more common reasons why you may be struggling to pair your email address with FreeAgent.

We offer four options for pairing your email. The best choices for a good pairing experience are:

• Pair with Google
• Pair with Office 365
• Pair with Exchange

The main reason we see more potential issues with "Pair Other Email" is that this option requires you to know all of the information related to your email account. Let's go through some of the more common ones that we see.

We'll cover the following topics

• Validate your Username and Password
• Server Settings
  
  • Server Settings for POP
  • Server Settings for IMAP
• Other Things to Consider
  • Authentication
  • Change of Password
  • Email Server Changes
  • Network Connectivity Problems
  • Storage Limit Exceeded
  • You've Moved Your Emails to Another Folder
  • Check Email Account Status
  • Pairing a different Google or Office365 email account 
• Troubleshooting Steps
• I'm Still Having Issues

Validate your Username and Password

Make sure you are entering the correct credentials. You can verify this by going to your email provider's web portal. Regardless of who is hosting your email, they all provide a web portal in which you can log in to corroborate your credentials. 

Web Portals for common email providers:

• Outlook
• MS 365
• Gmail
• iCloud

Server Settings

It might be possible that the Outgoing or Incoming server settings are wrong. Here we have a few options for you to get the correct configuration:

Note: you don't need to provide server settings for a Gmail or MS 365 account when pairing them with FreeAgent.

1. If you are using Outlook desktop.
   Check the following information from Microsoft support:
   • For Windows users
   • For Mac OS users
2. If you are using Thunderbird.
   

   Check the following information from Thunderbird support.

3. If you are using Mail for Mac.

1. Open Mail.
2. In the top bar, click on "Mail".
3. Select "Settings" then click on "Accounts".
4. Select the email that you want to pair with FreeAgent.
5. Select the "Server Settings" tab.
6. If the option "Automatically manage connection settings" is checked, uncheck it to get the current port values that are used to connect with your service.

Typical Server Settings if You're using POP:

Incoming Mail Server (POP3):

• Server/Host: This is the address of the incoming mail server. It can be something like "pop.yourdomain.com" or "pop.provider.com."
• Port: The default POP3 port is usually 110. However, some email providers may use alternate ports like 995 (POP3 over SSL/TLS).

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):

• Server/Host: This is the address of the outgoing mail server, which handles the delivery of your sent emails. It may be something like "smtp.yourdomain.com" or "smtp.provider.com."
• Port: The default SMTP port is typically 25. However, many email providers also support alternative ports like 587 or 465 for secure connections.

Typical Server Settings if You're using IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol):

Incoming Mail Server (IMAP):

• Server/Host: This is the address of the incoming mail server. It can be something like "imap.yourdomain.com" or "imap.provider.com."
• Port: The default IMAP port is usually 143. However, some email providers may use alternate ports like 993 (IMAP over SSL/TLS).

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP):

• Server/Host: This is the address of the outgoing mail server, which handles the delivery of your sent emails. It may be something like "smtp.yourdomain.com" or "smtp.provider.com."
• Port: The default SMTP port is typically 25. However, many email providers also support alternative ports like 587 or 465 for secure connections.

Other Things to Consider

Authentication

Another reminder that email syncing requires proper authentication with the email servers. If there are any issues with the authentication process, such as expired credentials or incorrect methods, it can prevent our platform from syncing emails. Verify that the authentication details are current and accurately entered in FreeAgent. Even one character out of place or missing can cause the pairing to fail. 

Typical Authentication Requirements

• Username/Email Address: This is the email address associated with your account, for example, "yourname@example.com."
• Password: The password you use to access your email account.

Encryption/Security:

• SSL/TLS: You may have the option to enable SSL/TLS encryption for secure communication between your email client and the mail server. This helps protect your data during transmission.
• STARTTLS: Another option is STARTTLS, which initiates an encrypted connection after the initial connection is established.

Change of password

If the email's password recently changed, this will affect the syncing of your emails. You will need to unpair your email with FreeAgent and start the pairing process over again with the new password.

Email Server Changes

Sometimes your email provider can make changes to their back end that can cause problems with 3rd party applications. 

Network Connectivity Problems

Unstable or poor network connectivity can disrupt email syncing. Verify your internet connection and that no network issues affect email syncing.

Storage Limit Exceeded

If the email account reaches its storage limit, it can prevent further syncing of emails. Please ensure the email account has enough storage capacity and does not exceed its limits. This tends to be more common with smaller providers or email accounts that are tied to your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

You've Moved Your emails to Another folder

Moving your emails in your email server from the “Received” or “Sent” folder to a custom one will affect the emails syncing into the CRM.

Check email account status

Ensure that your email account is active and in good standing. Verify that you haven't exceeded any storage limits or encountered any other issues that may prevent syncing. Most providers have a status page that will tell you if the service is running or not.

Pairing a different Google or Office365 email account 

If you want to change the Google or Office 365 email account you have paired in FreeAgent, you first need to log out of your Google or Office 365 account from the browser. You can then pair a different email account.

This is a feature of Google and Microsoft and cannot be overridden.

Troubleshooting Steps

Here's how to perform specific email troubleshooting steps from within FreeAgent. 

Unpairing and repairing your email.

How to Pull Email

Admins can "pull" emails for their users if emails haven't been synced with their FreeAgent account. 

I'm still having issues

Please reach out to us using the live chat or send us an email to:
support@freeagentsoftware.network
We will be happy to help you!