Testing your email with Telnet

This article will show you how to test your IMAP and SMTP settings using Telnet

In circumstances where your usual email client is not connecting to your mailbox, using Telnet can helps you to perform a basic assessment of whether your mailbox is functional. This can help you to eliminate your local software as an issue in being unable to receive your mail.

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1. How can I use Telnet to test my IMAP email account is working?
2. How can I use Telnet to test that my email account can send mail via SMTP?

How can I use Telnet to test my IMAP email account is working

1. Open your command console. In most versions of Windows, click Start, then Run.

   From there, type cmd into the command window and hit Enter.

2. Enter the text as shown in bold in the example command box below, hitting Enter at the end of each line.

   telnet imap.secureserver.net 143
   * OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT
   LITERAL+ IDLE CHILDREN NAMESPACE LOGIN-REFERRALS UIDPLUS LIST-EXTENDED I18NLEVEL=
   1 AUTH=PLAIN] ATLAS/WebFusion Mail Server
   01 LOGIN username@domain.com password
   01 OK [CAPABILITY IMAP4rev1 SASL-IR SORT THREAD=REFERENCES MULTIAPPEND UNSELECT
   LITERAL+ IDLE CHILDREN NAMESPACE LOGIN-REFERRALS UIDPLUS LIST-EXTENDED I18NLEVEL
   =1 AUTH=PLAIN] Logged in.

   Please note: In the code example above, generic values have been used for the mailbox usernames and passwords. When testing your email account connection using telnet, please ensure you have the correct username and password to hand.

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How can I use Telnet to test that my email account can send mail via SMTP?

1. Open your command console. In most versions of Windows, click Start, then Run.

   From there, type cmd into the command window and hit Enter.

2. Enter the text as shown in bold in the example command box below, hitting Enter at the end of each line.

   telnet smtpout.secureserver.net 465
   220 mail6.atlas.pipex.net ESMTP Exim 4.71 - "ATLAS SMTP Service" Wed, 13 Jul 2011 10:47:06 +0100
   EHLO smtpout.secureserver.net
   250-mail6.atlas.pipex.net Hello hns01-fw.internal.gxn.net [195.224.160.13]
   250-SIZE 31457280
   250-PIPELINING
   250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
   250 HELP
   AUTH LOGIN
   334 DXNl4gddhbWU3
   cwtui3lAcmlja2ljaeFoYewuY2 (Base 64 encoded username)
   334 UGFzc3dvcmQ6
   YeGjc3ducmE (Base 64 encoded password)
   235 Authentication succeeded
   MAIL FROM: emailaddress@domain.com
   250 OK
   RCPT TO: recipent@theirdomain.com
   250 Accepted
   DATA
   354 Enter message, ending with "." on a line by itself
    Subject Test using Telnet
   .
   250 OK id=4Qgw3m-023484q-I5

   Please note: In the code example above, generic values have been used for the mailbox usernames and passwords.

   This test will indicate whether or not you are able to connect successfully to send email from your email account. If you see the statement OK, it means that the email message was sent to the recipient.

   If you are able to connect successfully using Telnet and send an email, but not through your regular email client, this suggests the issue may be caused by your local software. As such, you should re-check your account settings within your email client in accordance with the vendors help documentation and our email support pages.

   If you would like to view all folders within a mailbox you can use the below command when connected via Telnet to the IMAP server.

   
   . list "" "*"
   

   Please note: In the code example above, generic values have been used for the mailbox usernames and passwords.

   When testing your email account connection using telnet, please ensure you have the correct username and password to hand.

   You will need to encode the username and password using a Base 64 tool such as base64decode.org

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