Understanding Outlook Configuration & Profiles
All versions of Outlook create and utilize an <Outlook Profile> before it can be used. On a new machine (or one that has been reformatted) where Outlook has been installed for the first time, Outlook will require that an Outlook profile be created which for the vast majority of people includes the configuration of at least one email account. It is important to realize that once an Outlook profile is created, it is not deleted if Outlook is uninstalled and subsequently re-installed. Outlook profiles persist through the uninstall/reinstall process so it’s a pointless and needless time-consuming exercise to go through the process in an effort to “start from scratch”.
In general, starting Outlook over “from scratch” is simply creating a new Outlook profile via the Control Panel Mail app (Outlook should be closed). Once the new profile has been created, it should be set as the default profile to be used the next time Outlook opens otherwise it will have no impact. Deleting and re-adding an email account as a way to resolve a potential problem is not the same thing as creating a “new profile” with this same email account. If the Outlook profile itself has become corrupted for whatever reason, making changes to it will not likely serve any purpose.
There is a growing reliance on the use of “auto-discover” when configuring email accounts which is fine if the email account you want to configure can be “auto-discovered” and it gets configured using the protocol you want to use for the account. When auto-discover is successful, the protocol used for each of the following will be as follows:
- Outlook.com will be configured as an EAS account (an Outlook.com account can also be manually configured as an EAS account if auto-discover doesn’t work)
- All other accounts (excluding Exchange accounts) will be configured as an IMAP account if supported
- Exchange accounts will always use the ExtendedMapi Exchange protocol
There are a number of posts on the Microsoft Answers forum from people saying “Outlook forces me to use Imap – it doesn’t give me a choice”. Reality is that Outlook doesn’t force anything, if there’s a desire/need to use a different protocol for a given account, then it can be manually configured. The above simply lists what happens when you let Outlook configure the account automatically.
The same email account can be configured using different protocols supported by the ESP which is not something that is controlled by Outlook.
Outlook.com accounts can be configured as
- MAPI (Outlook’2010 or earlier)
- EAS (Outlook ‘2013)
- POP3 (any Outlook version)
- IMAP (any Outlook version)
Exchange accounts can also be configured as either POP or IMAP accounts <IF> the Exchange server is configured to support those protocols. The Exchange Administrator will provide that information.
Most other accounts can be configured as either POP3 or IMAP but whether both are supported for email accounts depends solely on the ESP.
When manually configuring an email account, you will need to gather the following information from your ESP providing you with your email account. Virtually all ESP’s provide a web page with the applicable Outlook settings which are the same regardless of which version of Outlook is used.
- User ID (usually your email address)
- Password
- Incoming server name
- Incoming server Port#
- Incoming server encryption (if applicable)
- Outbound (SMTP) server name
- Outbound server authentication credentials (either same as inbound or unique
- Outbound server Port#
- Outbound server encryption (if applicable)
Some people report that they are advised that the ESP does not support a given version of Outlook. Reality is that what is being stated by the ESP support personnel is that they do not provide Outlook “user-interface” support for a given version to configure the email account, NOT that the account cannot be accessed by a specific Outlook version. In short, any email account can be accessed by any email client using the correct settings for a given supported protocol.
Category: Understanding Outlook
