How to Set Up Microsoft Outlook E-mail

Communicate with friends and contacts by setting up Microsoft Outlook email.

Microsoft Outlook is email and information management software that you can buy as a standalone application or as part of the Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs. Outlook includes an advanced email application that offers many features, including junk email filtering and the ability to setup multiple email accounts. Once you've installed Microsoft Outlook on your computer, you can set up the email application with the program's "Add Account" tool.

Instructions

1. Launch Microsoft Outlook. Click the "File" tab in the main program menu ribbon.

2. Select "Add Account" in the "Account Information" group.

3. Type your full email address, password and email display name into the relevant input fields. Click the "Next" button. Outlook will automatically setup the email account using the information that you've entered.

4. Wait for the automatic email account setup procedure to finish. This can take a few minutes and Outlook displays a progress bar during the procedure. In most cases, Outlook will display a message to confirm that it has successfully setup the email account. However, if Outlook fails to activate the account automatically, you'll need to configure the email connection manually. To do this, you'll need the outgoing and incoming mail server addresses for the email account. You can get this information from the email account provider or Internet service provider.

5. Click the check box beside "Manually Configure Server Settings" to enable and select this option in the "Problem Connecting to Server" dialog box that Outlook automatically displays if it can't automatically setup the account.

6. Click the "Advanced Settings" button. Type the outgoing server and incoming server addresses, and your email username and password into the relevant input fields. Once you've entered all the required information, click the "Finish" button.

7. Click "File," then select "Close" to exit Outlook. The program will implement the changes and add the account when you next launch it.

Tips & Warnings

• You can add multiple email accounts to Microsoft Outlook. Follow the preceding steps for each email account that you want to add. To add a Windows Live Hotmail email account, you'll need to use the Microsoft Outlook connector add-in. When you enter the Hotmail address, Outlook will prompt you to download this add-in. Click "Yes" in the confirmation dialog box to download Outlook Connector and add a Hotmail email account to Outlook.

References

• Microsoft Office Outlook 2010: Add or Remove an Email Account

Resources

• Microsoft Office: Outlook 2010 Help and How-to