This page explains how to set up Microsoft Outlook 2010 to send and receive email for an email mailbox that you’ve created.

Before you continue, you should enter your email address (the address you want to set up in Microsoft Outlook) in the box above. Entering your email address makes sure that the instructions below are correct.

Setting up Microsoft Outlook 2010 using Autodiscover

Autodiscover makes it easy to set up Outlook 2010. You’ll just tell Outlook your name, email address, and password, and it will automatically figure out the other settings for you.

Autodiscover creates your email address as a “POP” connection. Separate instructions are also available for setting up an IMAP connection or for manually setting up Outlook 2010 without using Autodiscover.

1. Start the Microsoft Outlook program.

Use the Start menu to start Outlook 2010. If you’ve never used Outlook before, it will prompt you to create a new account. In that case, skip ahead to step 2.

If you’ve previously used Outlook and it doesn’t prompt you, click the File tab, then the Add Account button:

2. Provide your basic email information.

Enter your name, email address, and password so that the four highlighted boxes in the window looks like this (but with your name instead of “Bill Gates”):

• “Your Name” is the name that other people will see when you send them email. It should usually be your real name, such as Bill Gates, but some people enter a company name like Acme Rockets.
• The “E-mail Address” is the address of the mailbox you created in our account management control panel.
• “Password” and “Retype Password” boxes are the email password you chose for this email address when you created the mailbox. The password may be different from your master account password with our company.
• Do not check “Text Messaging (SMS)” or “Manually configure server settings or additional server types”.

Click Next.

3. Allow the redirection if necessary.

Outlook may show a window that looks like this:

If you see this window, check Don’t ask me about this website again, then click Allow.

It’s okay if you don’t see this window — simply continue to the next step below.

4. Autodiscover detects your account settings.

Autodiscover will try to detect your email account settings. If it succeeds, you will see a “Congratulations” window:

Click Finish. This will return you to the main Outlook window.

Outlook setup is complete

You’re finished! Try sending yourself a test email message to make sure it works.

Having trouble?

If you can’t get Autodiscover to work, you can follow the manual Outlook 2010 setup instructions instead.

Why does Outlook delay showing new mail or have trouble “synchronizing folders”?

We occasionally hear of cases where newly arrived messages are visible from other mail programs and Webmail, but Outlook takes several minutes (or even hours) to show them in the Inbox, often saying it’s still “synchronizing” the folders.

This is sometimes caused by a bug in Outlook. We’ve found that deleting the IMAP “account” within Outlook (not in our control panel) and then re-adding it by following the instructions above usually fixes it.

If you still have trouble, try this to make Outlook avoid unnecessary synchronizations:

1. In Outlook, click the File tab, then click Options, then Advanced
2. Click Send/Receive... in the “Send and Receive” section
3. Make sure that “All Accounts” is highlighted and click Edit
4. Uncheck Get folder unread count for subscribed folders
5. Under “Received Mail Items”, choose Use the custom behavior defined below
6. In the window below that shows your folders, check only the Inbox
7. Click OK to close the window, then close the Options window