The academic messaging system of Poitiers is based on the Convergence Poitiers service, with a webmail accessible via messagerie.ac-poitiers.fr for individual mailboxes. Configuring this messaging on a mobile client requires mastering the IMAP/SMTP settings specific to the academy’s Zimbra infrastructure and distinguishing between individual and functional mailboxes, which have different access paths.
Zimbra Poitiers IMAP Protocol: Authentication and Encryption Settings
The Poitiers academy uses Zimbra, which implies specific requirements for authentication and encryption that standard IMAP/SMTP settings do not cover.
The incoming server is imap.ac-poitiers.fr on port 993, with SSL/TLS encryption. The outgoing server is smtp.ac-poitiers.fr on port 465, also using SSL/TLS. A common technical point of error: the identifier field expects your ENT login (in the format firstname.lastname), not the full address [email protected]. Using the full address may result in an authentication rejection on certain versions of Android without an explicit error message.
We recommend testing the IMAP connection before configuring SMTP. If the incoming server responds correctly, any potential issues with the outgoing server will be easier to isolate. Note that the national webmail messagerie.education.gouv.fr, being gradually deployed since February 2024, does not change local IMAP/SMTP settings: both systems coexist.
For those who wish to configure the academic messaging of Poitiers with an illustrated step-by-step guide, the procedure remains the same regardless of the chosen mail client, provided these Zimbra settings are followed.
Individual Mailbox or Functional Mailbox: Distinct Configuration on Mobile
The Poitiers academy distinguishes between two types of mailboxes. The individual mailbox ([email protected]) belongs to each staff member. The functional mailbox (e.g., [email protected]) is linked to a service or institution. On the webmail, both are accessible through separate interfaces.
On mobile, this distinction has a direct consequence: a functional mailbox cannot be configured with the same identifier. The login is no longer firstname.lastname but the specific identifier assigned to the mailbox. Attempting to link a functional mailbox with personal identifiers will systematically fail.
If you manage both types of mailboxes, we recommend creating two separate accounts in your mail application. Merging the two streams into a single account via redirections is technically possible, but the academy strongly advises against it for reasons of confidentiality of administrative data.
Security and Data Separation on a Personal Device
The Poitiers academy, like all academies, strongly discourages the use of a personal mail application to combine private and professional emails. This is not just a comfort recommendation: it is a matter of GDPR compliance applied to school and administrative data.
The risks are spread across three areas:
- A unified mail client synchronizes contacts and attachments in a common storage space, exposing sensitive documents (report cards, student records) to third-party applications that have access to the phone’s storage.
- Automatic redirection to a private webmail (Gmail, Outlook.com) routes messages through servers outside the scope of the National Education, which constitutes a violation of academic security rules.
- In case of loss or theft of the phone, the lack of containerization makes it impossible to remotely erase only professional data without affecting personal data.
The cleanest solution on Android remains to use a separate work profile (via the system’s profile management functions) or, failing that, a mail application dedicated exclusively to the academic account. On iOS, creating a dedicated mail account in Settings > Mail already partially isolates the data, but without strict containerization.
Troubleshooting Common Errors After Mobile Configuration
Once the settings are entered, several errors frequently recur. The most common is the message “Unable to verify the identity of the server” on iOS. This message appears when the SSL certificate of the academic server is not recognized by Apple’s certificate store. Generally, it is sufficient to accept the certificate manually during the first connection.
On Android, the most frequent error is a silent synchronization failure. Check these points in order:
- The IMAP port is indeed 993 (and not 143, which corresponds to an unencrypted connection rejected by the Poitiers server).
- The security type is SSL/TLS and not STARTTLS, which uses a different negotiation mechanism and causes timeouts on this infrastructure.
- The identifier is the ENT login without the domain @ac-poitiers.fr.
- The password is your ENT session password, not an old academic password prior to the Convergence migration.
After a change of ENT password, the update must be done manually in the mobile mail client. No automatic synchronization mechanism propagates the new password to the application.
Option to Delete Messages on the Server
If you use the IMAP protocol (recommended), messages remain on the server and synchronize across all your devices. Keep the “keep a copy on the server” option enabled. Disabling it will cause messages to disappear from the webmail after download, which is problematic if you also access your mailbox from a fixed workstation in the institution.
The storage capacity of academic mailboxes remains limited. Regularly delete large attachments directly from the webmail to prevent an exceeded quota from blocking reception on mobile without clear notification.
The gradual transition to the national webmail messagerie.education.gouv.fr does not change the IMAP/SMTP configuration settings for now. As long as the servers imap.ac-poitiers.fr and smtp.ac-poitiers.fr respond, the mobile configuration described here remains valid. Keep an eye on communications from the academic DSI to anticipate a possible migration of the mail servers.