Access your email through Outlook

Using the Outlook program installed on your computer

Virtually all email accounts can be accessed through a web browser.  Using an installed version of Outlook on your computer, however, will provide more features, offline access and easier handling.

This article will direct you to tutorials giving you step-by-step instructions to add your email account to outlook, including in these situations:

• If you already have an email account configured in Outlook and wish to add another one.
• If your email account is through a non-Microsoft provider, i.e. Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud
• Your email account requires 2-factor authentication
• You are using a Mac computer

Outlook is not a free program.  You will either need to purchase it as a one-time cost, or license it through O365.  If you aren’t sure if you have it, then please see the FAQ section of this article.

Outlook is not a single product, but a brand that includes many different products. The only thing these products have in common is that they all focus on email. Outlook, in all of its incarnations, is a personal information manager which allows you to access not just your email, but also calendar, tasks, contacts, notes, and journals.

The brand includes:

• Outlook: an installed email client application; part of the Microsoft Office suite.
• Outlook.com: a free web based email account (it used to be called Hotmail).
• Outlook Web App (aka OWA): the web based email client for users of Microsoft Exchange Server and O365.

This article is about Outlook, the installed email client application.

Configure Outlook for a first email account

If you have just installed Outlook, and you are configuring it for your first email account, then just run the program.  It will prompt you with a popup window to enter the full email address of the account with a window which looks similar to this:

Thereafter, it will prompt you for your password, and then allow you to open Outlook with your new email account information syncing down.

More information about setting up Outlook is available through the links at the upper right of this article (under the Tutorial links heading).

Configure Outlook for an additional email account

Step-by-step instructions are provided by following the appropriate link at the upper right of this article (under the Tutorial links heading).

Answers to Frequently Asked Questions:

Outlook is configured and my data is syncing down.  May I use Outlook?

Yes.  Outlook may take a while to sync your data down depending on the amount of data you have, your computer resources and your Internet bandwidth, however, you can start using it while it is syncing.  You will not see all of your data, and if the data you need is not synced down yet, you will have to wait for it, or access your email temporarily through a browser.

Which version of Outlook do I have?

There are several versions of Outlook available and many ways to purchase or lease it. You could have a one-time purchased product that cannot be updated, or you may have a licensed product that you pay for monthly or yearly which is continuously updated.  Please follow this link.

I have an app on my Windows 10 computer called Mail. Is that Outlook?

No. Mail is a free app that Microsoft bundles with Windows 10. You can use it, but it does not include all of the features of Outlook. To setup your email in the Mail app, please follow this link.

I heard that Outlook is free.  True?

You may be referring to the fact that you can setup a free account with Outlook.com. This provides a browser based interface to access a free email account within the @outlook.com domain. You can also attach other email accounts to an @outlook.com account.  It provides many of the same features as the Outlook program, but not all. You can even install Outlook.com as an app on your computer and use some of it’s features offline.  If you have a license for Outlook, though, we recommend using Outlook instead.  For more information about @outlook.com, please follow this link.

If you have questions about this, please let us know and we will be happy to assist you.
Take care,