Here’s how to troubleshoot your Outlook connections to POP, IMAP and SMTP accounts.
Outlook has a ‘Test Account Settings’ button that makes testing a lot easier (also Auto Configuration for many accounts). It’s there when you setup or change account settings. Click on the button and Outlook will try to receive and send messages using the settings you’ve entered.
If there’s a problem, it’s usually some detail that’s been mistyped or a default that’s changed.
Typing errors are common. Not just the password but also the server names. I once came to the rescue of a friend who had spent hours trying to setup an account. Imagine his frustration when I walked in, looked at the Outlook settings and fixed it in seconds. The problem? He’d typed smpt.server.com not smtp.server.com – as simple as that.
The other common trouble is the SMTP settings for sending messages. There’s a range of ‘alphabet soup’ options (SPA, SSL, TLS) plus port values.
Check with the mail host for the right settings. Hopefully they’ll have specific help for Outlook users as well as general settings advice.
If you have a laptop and you have trouble sending messages from a new location, it might not be your settings. Keep in mind the possibility that your internet connection might by blocking SMTP access or your mail host won’t allow ‘external’ connections.
The Full Story
If you get really stuck, Outlook can create a full log of its POP, IMAP and SMTP connections. Only nerds and geeks can sort through these logs to find the problem, but it’s there if really necessary. Sadly POP and SMTP are written to the same log file which makes it even harder to work through the text.
Microsoft has a Knowledge Base article on Outlook logging. Remember to turn off the log when you’re done because making the log will slow down Outlook and it doesn’t take long for the log file to get very large indeed.
