Setting up FairEmail is fairly simple. You'll need to add at least one account to receive email and at least one identity if you want to send email. The quick setup will add an account and an identity in one go for most major providers.
To add an account, tap *Manage accounts* and tap the orange *add* button at the bottom. Select a provider from the list, enter the username, which is mostly your email address and enter your password. Tap *Check* to let FairEmail connect to the email server and fetch a list of system folders. After reviewing the system folder selection you can add the account by tapping *Save*.
If your provider is not in the list of providers, select *Custom*. Enter the domain name, for example *gmail.com* and tap *Get settings*. If your provider supports [auto-discovery](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6186), FairEmail will fill in the hostname and port number, else check the setup instructions of your provider for the right IMAP hostname, port number and protocol (SSL/TLS or STARTTLS). For more about this, please see [here](https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#authorizing-accounts).
Similarly, to add an identity, tap *Manage identity* and tap the orange *add* button at the bottom. Enter the name you want to appear in de from address of the emails you send and select a linked account. Tap *Save* to add the identity.
If the account was configured manually, you likely need to configure the identity manually too. Enter the domain name, for example *gmail.com* and tap *Get settings*. If your provider supports [auto-discovery](https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6186), FairEmail will fill in the hostname and port number, else check the setup instructions of your provider for the right SMTP hostname, port number and protocol (SSL/TLS or STARTTLS).
See [this FAQ](https://github.com/M66B/FairEmail/blob/master/FAQ.md#FAQ9) about using aliases.
## Grant permissions - to access contact information
If you want to lookup email addresses, have contact photos shown, etc, you'll need to grant read contacts permission to FairEmail. Just tap *Grant permissions* and select *Allow*.
On recent Android versions, Android will put apps to sleep when the screen is off for some time to reduce battery usage. If you want to receive new emails without delays, you should disable battery optimizations for FairEmail. Tap *Disable battery optimizations* and follow the instructions.