Why can’t I log into army webmail?

This is a question that we hear quite often from young soldiers who have just completed their basic training and are off to join their units. Most webmail hosts such as Google, Yahoo & MSN usually provide customized versions of their email client for users of armed forces networks so that usernames and passwords can be pre-configured. This saves soldiers from the hassle of configuring their email clients and ensures that they don’t start sending emails with the wrong headers or other such inconveniences.

Must Read: Army Webmail

Unfortunately, this is not always possible, as some webmail providers do not allow us to pre-configure their service for those on defense networks. This can be a problem because those who join the army might find that they can’t access their webmail immediately after completing their basic training. Luckily this usually only lasts a few days and there are a couple of things you can do to help.

Firstly if your email provider has an option to customize the settings for your specific domain, then you should contact them and ask them to do this for you.

If this doesn’t work then here are some other options:

* The first thing to do would be to contact your unit, they should be able to tell you what email provider is available on their network and help you set things up.

* If that fails then the next option is an online free email host like GMX, which you can use for up to 5 email accounts. All you need is a valid landline number and they will send the verification code to your phone so that you can activate it. Once activated, just ask them to set up automatic forwarding of all emails from your army webmail address to one of your accounts on GMX so you can access it.

*The next option is to use an existing email account at home which you have previously used on non-defense networks. You will need to find out if that particular email provider has a customized service for defense network users and how they go about activating this, as most of them require us to fax in some forms to their service department. In case this is not possible, you will need to create a new email account for yourself for example @gmail or @rocketmail, and tell them that your regular email address has changed, but the server should forward all messages from your old address to your new one automatically.

*Lastly you should consider using a web browser email client like HushMail which you can use to access your account. This works in a similar fashion to Gmail, but they do not scan or record the contents of your emails and work independently of provider servers. You will need to create an account on their website and then use this for logging in instead of your regular email address when accessing your mail.

Hopefully one of these options will allow you to access your email, but if they don’t then please feel free to contact us for more detailed help and we’ll try our best to sort things out for you.