Setting Up a POP3 Email Account in Microsoft Outlook

Outlook

We're going to take you through it, step-by-step. These instructions should also work very similarly in Outlook Express 6, but we do not provide the differences.

Prepare: Find our your Incoming and Outgoing Mail Server paths and your username and password.

You'll need to know this information before you begin the actual setup. You should be able to get most or all of this information from your Internet Service Provider (ISP). For our demonstration, we're going to use the following sample information:

  • Username:  Dreamboat
  • Password:  abc123
  • Incoming Mail Server:  mail.officearticles.com
  • Outgoing Mail Server:  smtp.verizon.net

If I were setting up my verizon.net email account, then I would be using mail.verizon.net as my Incoming Mail Server. However, this helps you to understand how to set up your email so that you can get email from your own web hosting. We use our ISP's Outgoing Mail Server because most ISPs won't let you use a different one. This keeps spam to a minimum.

Set it up.

  1. Go to Tools Email Accounts.
  2. Choose Add a new email account.
  3. Choose POP3 and hit Next.

  1. Type in the following according to their description:

Your Name: Type your name as you would like it to appear to you.

E-mail Address: This is the email address you are setting up. Either you created it on your web hosting, or had someone create it for you, or your ISP assigned it to you.

Tip: Did you know? Email addresses are NOT case-sensitive! Don't let anyone tell you differently.

Incoming mail server (POP3): Type the incoming mail server here.

Outgoing mail server (SMTP): Type the outgoing mail server here.

User Name: This is the username assigned to your email account. It is often the same as the first part of your email address, and this is why many people believe that their email address is case-sensitive. It's not! But your username is!

Password: Also case-sensitive, enter your password in this box.

SPA? Should you check the Log on using... box? Not usually. But if it doesn't work the first time, you might want to try it.

Here it is, all filled out with our sample information. Next, I would hit the Test Account Settings button. Outlook sends an email to you to see if it works. If it does, hit the More Settings button.

  1. Next, we fill out these additional options. Change the Mail Account from mail.... to whatever you would like to appear in the FROM when you send an email to someone. Enter the organization name, if any, and the email you want someone to send to if they hit reply on one of your emails.

  1. The only other setting you may want to change would be the Server timeout. What is this? Suppose you're on dialup and your mail server (the computer at your ISP) is really busy. It could take a long time for you to pick up your mail. It's just like going to the post office and there's lots of people in line ahead of you. What did you think POP stands for? Post Office Protocol! That means wait in line....okay, not really.

So you increase the server timeout setting. It would be like increasing the amount of time you're willing to stand in line at the post office. Just drag the little notch to the right. Don't choose to leave a copy of your messages on the server unless you want to pick up your mail again and again and again...