How to Set Up Outlook.com Email on Microsoft Outlook

Authored by: Support.com Tech Pro Team

1. Introduction

Outlook.com and Hotmail.com are very popular, free to use email service providers. This guide will help you setup the Outlook program to access your email, rather than rely on the web interface.

Before You Begin:

Verify Password
Before setting up, take a moment to visit the web-based version of your email, and try to log in. You will need to remember your password in order to complete setup.

The Outlook logo

2. Setup Outlook Email

Outlook.com and Hotmail.com email addresses are hosted from the same servers, any instructions listed here will apply to both.

  1. Open Outlook.
Outlook icon
  1. Click the File menu.
Outlook file menu
  1. Click Add Account.
Outlook add account button
  1. Select Manual setup or additional server types and click Next.
Outlook 2016 manual setup
  1. Select POP or IMAP. Click Next.
Outlook pop or imap selection
  1. Within POP and IMAP Account Settings, fill out Your Name and full Email Address.
  2. For Server Information, select IMAP for Account Type. Incoming mail server should be set to imap-mail.outlook.com, and Outgoing mail server (SMTP) should be set to smtp-mail.outlook.com.
Outlook settings showing imap

  1. Next to Logon Information, fill in your User Name and Password and put a check next to Remember password. Then click the More Settings button.
Blank outlook settings focused on log on info
  1. Go to the Outgoing Server tab. Enable My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication and Use the same settings as my incoming mail server.
Outgoing server settings
  1. Go to the Advanced tab. For port settings, set Incoming server (IMAP) to 993 with SSL encryption, then set Outgoing server (SMTP) to 587 with TLS encryption.
Outlook advanced email settings
  1. Click OK then Next when finished.
  2. Click Close if the account logs in properly.
  3. Click Finish.
Click finish.
  1. Outlook will need to restart in order to finalize settings. Click 'OK' then re-launch Outlook.
Outlook needs to restart popup.
  1. Mail should automatically sync. It may take some time to complete.
Outlook setting up a local copy of your mailbox popup.