Setting up email in Outlook via IMAP/SMTP

If you host your email with a hosting provider rather than a big consumer webmail service, Outlook usually cannot auto-configure the account for you. Auto-discover relies on special DNS records or a provider-specific configuration file that most standard hosting mailboxes do not publish. That is not a fault, it just means you need to add the account manually using IMAP and SMTP settings. This guide walks through the process in the current desktop version of Outlook (Microsoft 365).

What you need before you start

Get these details from your hosting provider before opening Outlook:

• Your full email address and mailbox password
• The incoming (IMAP) server hostname, e.g. imap.yourdomain.com
• The outgoing (SMTP) server hostname, e.g. smtp.yourdomain.com
• The port numbers and encryption method for each

Unless your provider tells you otherwise, the conventional settings for a modern hosting mailbox are:

Incoming (IMAP): port 993, SSL/TLS
Outgoing (SMTP): port 587, STARTTLS
  or port 465, SSL/TLS (implicit)

Port 993 for IMAP and port 587 with STARTTLS for SMTP are the most common defaults across mainstream mail servers. Port 465 with implicit SSL/TLS is also fully standard and increasingly preferred, since encryption is in place from the first byte of the connection rather than negotiated partway through. Your provider will confirm which one their servers expect.

Adding the account manually in Outlook

• Open Outlook and go to File > Add Account.
• Enter your email address, then click Advanced options before continuing.
• Tick “Let me set up my account manually” and click Connect.
• When prompted for the account type, choose IMAP.
• On the IMAP Account Settings screen, enter the incoming mail server, port and encryption method (993, SSL/TLS).
• Enter the outgoing mail server, port and encryption method (587 with STARTTLS, or 465 with SSL/TLS).
• Enter your mailbox username, which is normally your full email address, and your password.
• Click Next and let Outlook test the connection, then Done.

Note that the exact account setup flow differs depending on whether you are using the current “new Outlook” interface or classic Outlook. New Outlook now supports manual IMAP/SMTP configuration too, but reaches it through a different path: choose Add Account, select IMAP as the account type, then click “Show more” to reveal the manual server, port and encryption fields, rather than the “Let me set up my account manually” checkbox described above, which is specific to classic Outlook. If you cannot find the manual fields in whichever version you are running, switching to classic Outlook (or the full desktop Outlook app) will get you the flow described above.

Common gotchas

• Outgoing server needs authentication. Almost every hosting mailbox requires SMTP authentication. If Outlook does not ask for a password on the outgoing server step, or you find mail is not sending, check the account’s advanced server settings and make sure “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication” is enabled, using the same settings as the incoming server.
• Matching usernames. The username for both incoming and outgoing servers should be identical, normally the full email address. A mismatch here is one of the most common causes of “send/receive” errors after setup.
• Wrong port or encryption combination. Pairing the wrong port with the wrong encryption method (for example, port 587 with SSL/TLS instead of STARTTLS) will cause the connection test to fail or hang. Double-check the pairing against what your provider specifies.
• IMAP not enabled on the mailbox. Some hosting control panels require IMAP access to be switched on for the mailbox before an external client can connect. If Outlook cannot connect at all, confirm this with your provider first.

Once connected, Outlook will download your existing mailbox folders over IMAP, so anything already stored on the server (not just new messages) should appear after the initial sync completes.