i can receive email but cannot send

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So your emails are coming in fine, but you can't seem to send any? It doesn't matter the size of the email, who you send it to, or whether or not there are attachments?

Well the good news is that we can fix this. And odds are its just a tiny configuration error. Here's how to do it.

Usually this is caused by one of two things (or sometimes both at the same time): Antivirus software and Firewalls.

Antivirus

Antivirus email scanning can cause holdups in your email sending. So we need to switch it off. See our guides on disabling some of the more popular versions of Antivirus.

Firewalls

Firewalls can also stop email from being sent. This is because a firewalls job is to stop Internet traffic on your computer. Sometimes they work a little too well.

Now to test this little problem we need to one of two things: use the DOS prompt or turn off the firewall.

DOS Prompt

To do this one we need to use the DOS prompt, commonly called the command line. You may have seen it once or twice, its that black window with the white writing. How do we get to it?

Go to the Start menu. Look for something called "Run" - its a tiny program that when clicked on brings up a little box asking for some details.
Type "command" without the quotes in the box. Click OK.
The black window (DOS prompt itself) should now open up. Let's get to work!
Click in the window and you will get a white cursor. This is usually following something like C:\Documents and Settings etc. This is where we type our command.
And here's the command: telnet mail.iinet.net.au 25

Hit enter. The command window will tell you its trying to open a connection to mail.iinet.net.au on port 25 - this is how your email get's sent.
On a computer that has no problems you will get a message that looks like this

If you get this message it means your email has a clear run and your firewall isn't causing problems.
If you get a message saying this

This indicates that the Firewall is causing a problem. You can either disable it as per our guides on how to disable come of the more common firewalls or call your Firewall manufacturer and get them to help you configure it.