What is webmail and why would you want to use it? Webmail is a term that is commonly used in two ways. It’s used to describe web-based email services like Yahoo Mail and Google’s Gmail. Webmail is also used to describe web-based access to any email account. For the past decade or more, nearly every ISP or email hosting company has provided web-based access to their email accounts. Thus, webmail is a convenient way to access your email account from nearly any computer anywhere in the world.
If your primary computer is having a problem and you cannot use your email application, such as Apple Mail or Microsoft Outlook, then you could still access your email account using webmail. If you are traveling and you do not want to carry a laptop, smartphone or tablet with you, then you could use any Internet connected Mac or PC to access your email account using webmail.
The challenge is to know what the web address is for your webmail service. Often the easiest way to figure out the web address is to ask your IT person or a colleague. That said, if you’re in a pinch you could take some educated guesses. For example, if you work for a company named ABC Food and your company’s web site is http://www.abcfood.com then you guess that the webmail address might be something like this:
http://mail.abcfood.com
http://webmail.abcfood.com
http://www.abcfood.com/webmail
http://www.abcfood.com/mail
Here are the web addresses of some other commonly used email providers
If you do not know how to access your email account using webmail, please find out your webmail address and either write it down or memorize this address. You never know when it’ll come in handy.