Your default e-mail address is a key element in your web sites e-mail system. It is set up automatically when your web hosting account is created, and can serve multiple functions. You can not delete it without messing up your sites e-mail system. However, there are a number of ways to use it that will definitely benefit you.

The default e-mail account will catch all e-mail coming in, if there is no address by that name at your site... hence the "catch all" name. While this is great to have for beginning web masters with a brand new domain, it can be a nightmare to the people that have had their domain for 3 months or more. Spammers will find your domain, either by searching the internet with spidering software, or finding your domain on some list of new domains.

Your default / catch all e-mail account can be used against them as well. I will show you a few ways to set up your default e-mail address to do what you want it to do.

Ok, in your control panel, after you click on the mail manager link, you will see a link that says; Default Address
Click that link.
That will take you to the Default Address Maintenance page. You will see at the bottom of the page, there is a link that says: Set Default Address.
Click that link to set up what your default / catch all, e-mail address will do for you.

Once you click that link, you will see the line that says, Send all unrouted mail for: , and then your domain name. You can have it send all your unrouted e-mail to many places. You will see reminder hints on the page below the area you put in your choice.

You can enter in your dial up ISP e-mail address, your POP3 mail box that you made at your domain, or you can enter :blackhole: to discard all incoming unrouted mail or :fail: no such address here to bounce it.

Personally, I find it best to use the :blackhole: feature. Most spammers do not use real addresses to send from, so bouncing it is pointless. If they do use a real address, then using the bounce feature will most likely get you on a verified list and get you more spam. (they found a working domain, and will keep looking for your real address, then sell the info to others)

If you choose to use your default e-mail address, then setting your e-mail client (outlook or netscpe) is pretty simple too. Just use the user name and password that gets you into your control panel as the user name and password for your default e-mail account. With that said,,, if you change your password for your control panel, remember that you just changed the password for your default e-mail account, and FTP also. I will go into detail on how to set up your e-mail clients in another section.