NOTE: These steps apply to BPOS. If you are looking for steps to Office 365, please refer to our Office 365 steps for manual Outlook profile creation.
I could not find any documentation anywhere on how to configure Outlook with Exchange Online. The only way that I discovered was to install the Microsoft Online Services Sign In Application which configured your MAPI profile for you automatically which I found several bugs in that didn’t work for me.
The following are the exact steps for Outlook 2007 on Windows Vista. Any other version of Outlook may vary slightly.
UPDATE: Thanks to one of our readers, Adam, I’ve updated the steps.
Find your server information
- Login to Outlook Web Access.
- Click on Options in the top right hand cover of OWA.
- Click on About in the navigation bar on the left.
- Find the entry for Mailbox server name and write it down as you will be using it later.
Create your Outlook profile
- Make sure you have Outlook 2007 installs (as of right now, only Outlook 2007 is supported).
- Open the Control Panel.
- If you are running 64-bit Windows, double click View 32-bit Control Panel.
- Doube click Mail.
- Click Show Profiles.
- Click Add.
- Enter a new name for the profile. i.e. Your email address
- Click OK.
- Click Manually configure server settings or additional server types.
- Click Next.
- Select Microsoft Exchange.
- Click Next.
- Enter the mailbox server name (that you wrote down from the previous section) in the field Microsoft Exchange server.
- Enter your full name in the field User Name.
- Click More Settings.
- If you are prompted with an error that the action cannot be completed, click OK.
- Click Cancel.
- Click on the Connection tab.
- Select Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP.
- Click Exchange Proxy Settings.
- Enter the mobile device URL for your region.
- Select On fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP.
- Click OK.
- Click OK.
- Click Check Name.
- Enter your User Name and Password
- Click OK.
- Your profile should now have resolved and the correct Microsoft Exchange server should be displayed.
- Click Next.
- Click Finish.
- Click OK.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for these instructions! You are amazing and awesome.
Posted by Erin | October 26, 2009, 4:58 pmOmigosh! THANK YOU
Posted by smaus | November 2, 2009, 10:41 pmWow, this was very, very helpful. For some reason the Microsoft Online Sign On app was not configuring my profile, and this took care of it. Thank you so much for posting.
Posted by David | January 20, 2010, 4:34 amThanks!
Posted by onefst250r | February 21, 2010, 6:18 pmThis is odd – I've set up a WinXP (can't use Sign In app on XP) laptop using this method before, but when I try on my own (again, XP) laptop, I get as far as step 13 and it gives me an error of:Outlook cannot log on. Verify you are connected to the network and are using the proper server and mailbox name. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action".I've tried using the Mailbox Server name found in OWA, but can't get it to work. Any ideas?
Posted by Conor Pendergrast | March 6, 2010, 6:13 pmIf that server address doesn't work for you, I found out you can log into the OWA (mail.microsoftonline.com), click Options, and About and find the exact server name in there.
Posted by Adam | April 5, 2010, 2:57 amI found that there are sometimes mailbox discovery issues with some mail servers.Following the above steps, if you still recieve the mailbox could not be found – change the mailbox server to another known server and then do a check name.For some reason this has worked for me everytime there has been an issue (2 in the last day)I suspect there is some issues on the backend as far as mailbox / mailserver discovery goes.Regards,Anthony Moore – IT Excellence Pty Ltd
Posted by Anthony | April 9, 2010, 12:35 pmThanks for all your comments. I've updated the steps now with Adams recommendation to locate your mailbox server. The previous server name I had listed must have been decommissioned which was causing the resolution problems.
Posted by Geeman Yip | April 13, 2010, 9:19 pmHi guys, Thanks for the info, but there are a few steps missing. Ill paste the mail from microsoft "step by step guide". Seems to work now. Had a problem with authentication. See below: 1. Navigate to Start – Control Panel – Mail2. Click Show Profiles then click Add…3. Enter Profile Name (i.e. your email address) and click OK4. Check the box for Manually configure server settings or additional server types and click Next5. Select Microsoft Exchange and click Next6. Enter your Microsoft Exchange server2. This can be found by logging into Outlook Web Access3. Click Options4. Click About5. Look for "Mailbox server name", this is your Exchange Server7. Check the box for Use Cached Exchange Mode8. Enter your User Name, this is your Microsoft Online Services User Name9. Click More Settings10. A window will appear displaying the message “The action cannot be completed. The connection to Microsoft Exchange is unavailable. Outlook must be online or connected to complete this action.” And click OK11. Another window will appear, click Cancel12. Click the Connection tab13. Under Outlook Anywhere, check the box for Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP, then click Exchange Proxy Settings14. For Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange,2. For North America enter red001.mail.microsoftonline.com3. For Europe, enter red002.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com4. For Asia, enter red003.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com15. Check the box for Connect using SSL only16. Check the box for Only connect to proxy servers that have this principal name in their certificate and enter2. “msstd:*.mail.microsoftonline.com” for North America3. “msstd:*.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com” for Europe4. “msstd:*.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com” for Asia17. Check the box for On fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP18. Check the box for On slow networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP19. Use NTLM Authentication for Proxy authentication settings20. Click OK all the way out
Posted by Anonymous | April 28, 2010, 11:13 amThank you for your comment.The steps described in the posting are the EXACT steps when creating a profile from scratch which should work. They have been verified with Outlook 2007 on both Windows Vista and Windows 7Some of the steps that you specify are already default settings when creating a profile or are unnessecary.
Posted by Geeman Yip | April 28, 2010, 9:30 pmIt worked! Finally! It worked! Using the steps from Anonymous there, I set up a *Profile* first, then set up a mail account. Damn, how did I not see that that was the problem. Thanks, this is fantastic!
Posted by Conor Pendergrast | April 29, 2010, 10:54 amGreat Job! You saved me from a ton of frustration.Thanks
Posted by Anonymous | June 17, 2010, 7:39 pmYES! The directions from Anonymous here in the comments totally worked, even for Outlook 2003 on an XP box. Sweeeeeet. I finally have OWA and Google Calendar synced up after using those directions to link up Outlook to OWA, then use Google Sync to Outlook. Yippeeeee!
Posted by Anonymous | June 30, 2010, 3:11 pmDidn’t work. Windows 7 doe snot come with Windows Mail, so the process does not work from step 3 onwards… I still have problems!
Posted by Aarron | November 9, 2010, 10:05 pmThank you, it’s perfect!
Posted by The frog | December 6, 2010, 7:22 amYou’re the best!! Thanks!
Posted by Marc | February 11, 2011, 3:39 pmThis was really useful. Straight to the point!
One little note, this worked for me using Outlook 2003 SP3
Thanks!
-Nestor
Posted by Nestor Urquiza | February 23, 2011, 10:52 amGreat!! thanks a lot!!!!
Posted by Pablo | March 21, 2011, 6:37 pmThanks for posting this. I couldn’t find the info ANYWHERE in the Exchange Online help or Admin console. This worked perfectly in Outlook 2010 32-bit.
Posted by Vince K. | March 23, 2011, 12:56 pmThis is probably the most insightful post I have every read. If everyone followed this, there would be half as less disappointments.
Posted by proxyma - other worlds | September 4, 2011, 1:35 amThank you – it worked well. Information very useful but difficult to actually find.
Posted by Terence | October 27, 2011, 6:20 amAwesome – thanks! This will help me use GAMME to migrate away from Microsoft Online/ BPOS to Google!
Posted by sameer | February 16, 2012, 10:23 amhttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/2404385 The only that worked for me.
Posted by Martin | March 1, 2012, 3:03 pm