About e-mail accounts
You can get the e-mail service you need by adding an e-mail account to Microsoft
Outlook using the information provided to you by your administrator or Internet service provider (ISP). Depending on your needs, you can add several e-mail
accounts to a single Outlook user profile.
For example, you can add
a Microsoft Exchange Server
account to handle your business e-mail and then add an Internet e-mail
account, such as Hotmail, to handle your personal e-mail.
Outlook supports the following types of e-mail servers:
- Microsoft Exchange Server
- Internet E-mail: POP3,
IMAP, HTTP
- Additional Server Types
To get started with an e-mail account, you need to tell Outlook:
Your account name, password, and e-mail server (adding an account)
The information usually supplied to you by your ISP or administrator is:
- Type of account (Exchange Server, POP3, IMAP, HTTP,
or other)
- Name of your incoming server and outgoing server
- Your user name
- Your e-mail address (for example: username@provider.com)
- Your password
Note
Sometimes the same server is used for both
incoming and outgoing messages, as with Microsoft Exchange Server. For POP3 and
IMAP accounts, messages you send are submitted to an outgoing server
that supports the SMTP
Internet standard and then are delivered to the recipient. Messages you receive are stored in your
account on a server that supports the POP3 or IMAP Internet
standard.
How to connect to your e-mail server (connecting/dialing)
You can connect in two ways:
- Over phone lines, by using a modem. You can
manually establish a connection or you can use dial-up networking to
automatically connect when you start Outlook. If you are connecting to a POP3
or IMAP server, your ISP can supply you with the phone number, modem settings,
and network protocols required.
- Through a local area network (LAN). Your organization might
provide external access to the Internet from your computer through a LAN.
Your administrator can provide you with account information and
network protocols to gain access to the e-mail servers.
When and how to get your e-mail from the
server (sending/receiving)
- If you are using Microsoft Exchange Server, you can
specify to work online or offline. Online (connected to the server) is the
Outlook default. Messages you send or receive are delivered immediately. If
you specify to work offline, you can choose how often Outlook connects to the
server to send and receive messages.
- If you are using an Internet e-mail account, you can
choose how often Outlook communicates with your Internet e-mail server to send
and receive messages.
- You can create a Send/Receive group that contains one or more of the e-mail
accounts you have set up in Outlook. You can then specify behavior
for the group, such as time intervals for sending or receiving messages, or
how mail is processed when Outlook is online or offline. With Send/Receive
groups you can:
- Specify whether an account is included when sending/receiving mail.
- Specify whether mail should be sent, received, or both, from an
account.
- Specify whether attachments should be downloaded.
- Specify size limits on messages to be downloaded.
- Specify folders to include when sending or receiving.
- Specify downloading only headers
for new messages.
- Specify different settings for when Outlook is online or offline.
Where to keep your e-mail
messages (data file)