In the event you are having trouble setting up a new account on a BlackBerry smartphone or BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, you can use the Email Account Validation Tool (EAVT) to help identify and verify your account and server settings.
After entering your email address and password into EAVT, this tool will try and discover if the target domain (AKA your email account) has any mail and/or PIM (personal information manager) delivery capabilities based on industry standards, including ActiveSync, IMAP, POP, SMTP, CardDAV and CalDAV. (To learn more about these standards, check out Wikipedia.com.)
When the EAVT tool is finished, the results will be displayed in a tabbed format grouping the various protocols together. Clicking on the various tabs (ActiveSync, IMAP, POP3, SMTP etc.) will reveal the discovery results and an option to validate the information (ActiveSync accounts are validated automatically).
Using this information, you can set up a new account on your smartphone. For example, I used one of my test email accounts and was able to identify that I can set up the following services on my BlackBerry 10 smartphone:
- IMAP – Setting up an IMAP account allows me to send and receive email
- CalDav – Adding a CalDav account allows me to wirelessly synchronize my calendar
- CardDav – Similar to Ca+lDav, adding this account allows me to wireless synchronization my contacts
Verifying an account using EAVT
- Navigate to the EAVT website > http://www.blackberry.com/eavt
- Enter the email address and password for the account you would like to validate, then complete the Captcha and click Submit
- Select the appropriate protocol tab according to the mail server settings (for example, IMAP)
- Click the Validate button for the port number configured on the mail server
- Note: Clicking Validate will attempt a login to the mailbox using the email address and password provided in step 2. For SMTP validation, an email will be sent to the provided email address (this email will be sent by eavt-tool@rim.com)
- If the settings specified are correct, the account will be validated; otherwise, validation will fail
- To validate another email address, click Clear Session at the bottom of the page.
After validating your server details, the next step is setting up the account on your smartphone using server details identified by EAVT.
Tip: To learn more about protocols and ports supported by EAVT, please review KB33444 in the BlackBerry Knowledge Base
BlackBerry 10 Advanced Account Setup
If attempts to add an account automatically to a BlackBerry 10 smartphone fail, use the EAVT tool to validate and identify your server details followed by adding the account to your smartphone using the Advanced Setup option.
To do this, complete the following steps:
- While viewing the home screen, swipe down from the top of the screen
- Tap Settings followed by Accounts
- If this is your first account, select the Advanced icon
that appears along the bottom toolbar.
- If you have other accounts already, select Add Account followed by selecting Advanced.
- Select the type of account you would like to add
- Enter your account username, password and other details provided by EAVT followed by tapping Next
- Tap Done.
For help setting up a new account on other types of BlackBerry smartphones as well as the BlackBerry PlayBook tablet, please visit http://blackberry.com/emailsetup
We also recommend reviewing the user guide for your device if you need additional assistance setting up new account by visiting http://docs.blackberry.com