How to set up an email address

An email address is the address of the account that you use to send and receive emails.

Email allows you to send messages and photos to people free and instantly.

You can use emails to keep in touch with friends and family (make sure you have their email addresses), order repeat prescriptions, do online shopping and much more.

Having an email account will also let you access other services on the internet, such as video calls.

Email providers

An email provider is an internet service that lets you create an account to send, receive and store emails.

There are a number of different email providers that you can choose to set up an email account.

You will need to visit one of their websites to create an account for free.

Devices

You can send and receive emails using your own computer, laptop, tablet or smartphone.

You can also access your emails from any computer connected to the internet.

Do this by going to the website of your email provider.

Create an email account

To create an email account on your email provider’s website. Here are the links:

1. Click the 'Create New Account' or 'Sign Up' button

2. Complete the sign up form. You'll be asked for a few personal details. For example; name and phone number

3. Choose your unique username. This is the part of your email address that comes before the @ symbol. Your email address can be anything you like as long as someone else has not used it before. When choosing your email address, think about who will see it and what it says about you

4. Choose a password. You'll use this to access your email in the future. Make sure it’s safe and secure, easy to remember, but not easy for other people to guess. A secure password should be a mixture of letters and numbers. Some email providers will ask you to make your password more than 8 characters long. Phrases that mix numbers and letters are safer and easier to remember. For example: Iam50yearsold

Terms and conditions

Before you finish creating your account, you’ll be asked to agree to the terms and conditions of the email service. You should look at the terms and conditions before you sign up for an email account. Make sure to check you are happy with the terms and conditions before you complete setting up your email account.

Learn more

Free courses on using email are available on the Learn My Way website.

To register for Learn My Way you'll need to enter your name and email address and choose a password. If you're learning from home, click the ‘Centre’ box and check the ‘I don’t have a centre’ box.