Windows Tools, Help & Guides

To set up an email account in Outlook 2010 is very straight forward. You get started by clicking the orange File button. This will show the new file-menu system. Here you can add and edit accounts, cleanup your mailbox and create Rules and Alerts. All you’re existing accounts (if any) will show up in the top part of the window.

In this article we’ll be setting up two account types:

• POP3/SMTP account
• Windows Live/Hotmail account

[UPDATE] Added Pop3 Information for Hotmail accounts.

There are Two ways to start the wizard. The first is to click on Add Account below the Account Information Heading. The second is to press the button called Account Settings. the difference between the two is that the first will open the Auto Account Setup Wizard where as the Account Settings Button will open the Email Accounts overview window first. If you have any experience using Outlook both windows will look familiar to you.

Click Add Account to start the wizard.

That starts the wizard which will guide you through the process. You have two choices: Fully automatic and the manual way. If you have an email account that follows the “normal” settings Outlook can try to guess the server settings for you. All you do is add your name, email, password and let Outlook do the rest. Funny enough this just works, but for now we’ll skip right to the Manual setup:

1. Choose Manually configure server settings or additional server types
   
   
2. Click next.
3. In the next Window, fill out all the necessary information as needed. Name, Email, Account Type, incoming and outgoing sever as well as the Logon information. If you don’t have all this, you can get it from your ISP or network manager.
4. Then it’s time to decide where your emails are to be stored. If you do not have any preferences at the moment, skip this step and use the Default setting: New Outlook Data File. However if you have a backup of an old pst-file from an earlier installation or another account, Click Existing Outlook Data File, then Click Browse. Lookup your file and Click OK.
5. Click Next
6. Click Finish, You’re Done!
7. Back in the main window, click Send /Receive to check for new email.

Other Account Types

In this part we walked through the POP3 account type. Outlook 2010 also support Text messaging, Microsoft Exchange, Fax and others. If you have a Live or Hotmail account you can also set up Outlook to handle these, tho The new email client called Windows Live Mail (which ships with Windows 7) is better suited to handle this. My advice is use the Windows Live Mail for this, but if you don’t want to use more than one client, here’s how to do it:

Setting up a Hotmail or Live Email account in Outlook

There are Two methods you can use. If you want to use the Outlook Auto Setup feature you need to download a plug-in for Outlook which allows the Outlook Wizard to connect to the Hotmail (or Live) server.
The other method is setting it up manually using the POP3 method above. If you prefer the latter you can try using the following settings:

Pop3 Settings:

• Incoming Server (POP3 Server): pop3.live.com
• Incoming Server POP Port: 995
• Incoming Server POP SSL Encryption: Yes (On or Required)

• Outgoing Server (SMTP Server): smtp.live.com
• Outgoing Server SMTP Port: 25
• Outgoing Server Authentication: Yes (On – Use POP username and password or Hotmail credentials)
• Outgoing Server TLS or SSL Secure Encrypted Connection: Yes (On or Required)

Setting up using the Outlook Auto Setup Feature

1. Open the File menu and choose Add Account
2. Using the Account Setup Wizard, type in your live email account information
3. Click Next
4. Outlook needs to install a plug-in to handle These kind of email accounts, and if it’s not installed you will be promoted to download and install the plug-in. If you do not see this prompt, skip to step 8, otherwise Click Install Now.
   
   Be aware that Microsoft still call this plug-in a Beta – so use with caution.
5. Your browser will open and the download will begin. When it’s done, install the plug-in.
6. You will be asked to restart Outlook and upon restart you Outlook asks if you would like to add a Hotmail account (live account). Click Yes.
   
7. Type in your live email account information and Next
8. Outlook may take some time to communicate with the Live server, when done, you will find your new account in the list on the left pane.

There you go – you’re all set.