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Setting up IMAP in Outlook

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So you’d like to try IMAP? Here’s step-by-step instructions on how to setup Outlook for an IMAP connection.

In this series we’ll look at how to setup IMAP. We’ll use Gmail as our host example because it’s free and well supported, however any IMAP host should work (most ISP based mail systems support IMAP).

Although many email services like Hotmail support IMAP, its usage has been limited due to special requirements or fees.


Achtung!

If you’re trying this out, you probably don’t want to mess with your existing email setup, until you’re happy with the new arrangements. We strongly suggest making a new Outlook profile (Control Panel | Mail) for any major re-vamp of your email arrangements.


Setting up IMAP in Outlook 2007

Outlook normally creates an email account with POP3 as the default protocol. We have to manually configure the settings to activate IMAP for your Outlook email account:



  • Open Outlook
  • Click Tools | Account Settings | Email | New
  • As shown in the below screenshot in the “Add New Email Account” select the first option “Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, or HTTP”

    Outlook - Add New E-mail Account image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

  • Click Next button at the end of this window
  • In the “Add New Email Account” window which opens next, check the “Manually configure server settings or additional server types” checkbox as shown in the below screenshot.

Note: Automatic configuration will create an IMAP account for you but only if POP is not available on the email host and IMAP is enabled. Otherwise you have to setup Outlook manually to ensure IMAP is used.

Outlook - Manually configure email server settings image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

 



  • Click the Next button
  • In the “Choose Email Service” window select the first option “Internet Email”

    Outlook - choose email service image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

  • Click the Next button
  • In the “Internet Email Settings” window fill the following information:

    • Your Name e.g. Fredi
    • Email Address (since we are configuring this setting for Gmail host you should enter Gmail id plus domain e.g. @gmail.com)
    • Account Type – IMAP
    • Incoming mail server – mail.yourdomain.com e.g. imap.gmail.com (since Gmail is our email host you have to enter this name in place of yourdomain)
    • Outgoing mail server (SMTP) – mail.yourdomain.com e.g. smtp.gmail.com (SMTP or Simple Mail Transport Protocol is the protocol used to send outgoing emails from Outlook). Get both the incoming and outgoing server names from your email host administrator.
    • User Name e.g. FredDaggTaihape (this name should match the name in your email address mentioned above)
    • Password

      Outlook - Internet email settings for IMAP and Gmail image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com


  • Next click on the “More Settings” button to configure further connection information
  • In this window choose the tab “Outgoing Server” and tick the checkbox “My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication”. Also the first radio button “Use same settings as my incoming mail server” is usually necessary (and is selected by default).

    Outlook - Outgoing server SMTP settings image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

  • Next click on the “Advanced” tab in the same window
  • Here as shown in the above screenshot enter incoming server port number as 993 and choose SSL encryption. For outgoing server enter port number as 587 and choose encryption type TLS for Gmail.

    Outlook - Advanced Internet E-mail settings - server port numbers image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

Normally the port numbers do NOT need changing. The encrypted connection type depends on the email host (ask them). The choices are None, SSL, TLS or Auto. If in doubt try Auto or None.



  • Click the OK button
  • The control will be taken back to the User information window.
  • Here you can either click the “Test Account Settings” button to test the mail connection before finalizing the settings or you can click the Next button if you are sure about the inputs which you entered in the fields.
  • Once you click the Next button the congratulatory message appears for successful configuration
  • Click the “Finish” button at the end of this window to complete this process.

Once IMAP has been successfully activated a new set of mail folders specific for the Gmail account which you just configured will appear in the Outlook Mail folder list. If you look in the screen shot below the Gmail account which we just configured appears as a separate folder below the personal folder. It is labeled as “FredDaggTaihape@gmail.com (1)” unlike the other personal folder which is activated by POP3.

IMAP folder structure in Outlook image from Setting up IMAP in Outlook at Office-Watch.com

Many Office Watch readers have written to complain about the appearance of this new folder structure asking ‘why can’t my IMAP email be combined with other email into a single Inbox’. Outlook can’t do that because IMAP isn’t just grabbing email from hosts and copying it into your Inbox – IMAP copies what appears in the Outlook folders and the email host account. To get the most out of IMAP you need to make those folders the central point for your messaging bringing other email accounts (via POP) into IMAP storage. We’ll talk more about this in future.

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