Setting up an Email Account in Outlook

In this post we are going to go through how to set up an email account in Outlook. In this instance we are using Outlook 2007 but other versions follow a very similar process. As we go I am also going to take the opportunity to explain a little bit about what is going on behind the scenes so you will have a bit more of an understanding about how email and Outlook works

To start with you can find the account settings screen under the tools drop down. Outlook can handle multiple email accounts and it is under the account settings screen you will be able to manage them all.

The account settings screen contains a number of tabs covering a wide range of things you can manage in Outlook. In this case we are just going to focus on E-Mail. From this screen you can edit the details of all the email accounts already set up in Outlook. To add a new account we need to click the "new" button.

The first screen asks you what type of account you wish to setup. In most cases you will probably want Exchange, POP3, IMAP or HTTP

The next screen will ask for soem basic information Outlook can use to try and lookup the settings for you. Not all email providers have auto setup so we are going to cover how to do it manually. To set up a new account manually you will need to click the manually configure server settings tick box and click next.

Next we need to specify what type of account we want to add. The first option (the one we are going to cover here) is POP3, IMAP or HTTP. Microsoft Exchange accounts are a little more complicated so we will cover that in another post.

The next screen is where we will put in all the details about the email account we want to manage. Your email provider should have provided you with all the details you will require either when you set up the email or via a support page.

The details Outlook is asking for relate to the email address you are trying to access and the mail server that hosts the mailbox. The name field allows you to set a diplay name for your emails when they arrive in someones inbox. If the email account you wish to send is actually a generic business email address (such as info@ or customerservice@) you may want to pick a relevant display name.

The incoming and outgoing mail servers are the servers used to send and recieve emails. At Jarrett & Lam we use the same server for both but other email providers may seperate them. The login information contains the username and password used to access your email account. Depending on your email service provider you may require secure password authentication.

The lst thing you may need to change will be under "more settings" (as highlighted above). Some email providers, Jarrett & Lam included in this group, you may need to change a setting in the outbound server tab to say that the outgoing server requires authentiation. 

Once you are done you can click OK and use the test settings button to check you have completed everything correctly. It is also a good idea to send yourself a test email (from a different email addess if possible) just to double check it is all working.

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