39. Setting Up Accounts and Personalizing Outlook

Before getting started with Outlook’s Mail module, you need to set it up to work with your email account. In this chapter, you find out how to add email services, configure them to work with Outlook, and personalize the Outlook interface.

• POP3—Post Office Protocol 3; this is the most popular email account type. With it, your email messages are downloaded from the server hosting your account; you read and store them on your computer and not the mail server. This means you can read the messages on your computer only and the mail server keeps your email only until you download it (unless your provider has a web mail interface).

• IMAP—Internet Message Access Protocol; this type of account stores your emails on the mail server without your needing to download them onto your computer. The nice thing about this setup is that you can access your messages from any computer.

• MAPI—Messaging Application Programming Interface; this account type is a lot like IMAP, but with more features, especially if you’re running Outlook with a mail server that uses Microsoft Exchange. MAPI accounts are generally associated with Microsoft Exchange.

• HTTP—This is a Web protocol, and you can use your browser to log on to the site and view mail. Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, and Gmail are examples of web-based email services.

For a fee, ISPs offer the use of their equipment (giant servers and other computers and networks) and their connection to the Internet. Many include email as part of the package. Basically, this means you can set up an email address with them. On the downside, if you ever switch ISPs, you’ll have to switch email addresses and notify everyone of the change. If this potentially poses a problem, you might consider getting an email account through a free service.

Microsoft offers free email through its Microsoft accounts. So, if you don’t already have an email service, it’s easy enough to set one up through Microsoft. Best of all, a Microsoft account works seamlessly with Outlook. Up until 2013, Microsoft’s free perks included email through its Windows Live and Hotmail services. Users needed a Windows Live ID to sign into things like SkyDrive (cloud storage), Messenger (the instant messaging service), or Windows Phone (smartphone). You had to have another ID to use Xbox Live to play games online. Now the company has merged all these accounts into one service under the umbrella called a Microsoft account. The good news is if you already have an account through Windows Live or Xbox Live, you already have a Microsoft account. They’re one and the same. You can use this account to access your data from any device, whether it’s your Xbox, Windows Phone, or tablet, for example. You can also connect your Microsoft account to services like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

If you don’t have such an account yet, here is how to get one. Navigate to www.outlook.com and click the Sign Up Now link. You can then fill in a form and choose an email address, called a Microsoft account name. Figure 39.1 shows what the form looks like. You can even specify whether you want the new email account to use the outlook.com domain, hotmail.com, or live.com.

FIGURE 39.1 Signing up is simple; add your name information and choose an email address.

Your account name can be anything you want. Most people use their actual names or a combination of initials and such to create a unique email address. If you happen to choose something already in use by someone else, Microsoft prompts you to try another name. After you have a Microsoft account established, you can start using it to email with Outlook as long as you tell Outlook what the account is—learn more about adding and editing email accounts later in this chapter.

Outlook automatically configures your email accounts for you. All you need to specify is your email address and password; Outlook takes care of the rest. On the off chance it cannot establish a connection, you might need to gather up some additional information from your ISP and manually configure the account. This can include identifying your server type, the address of the incoming mail server and outgoing mail server, and any passwords required for each. The following sections cover both methods.

1. Click the File tab.

2. On the Account Information screen, click the Add Account button.

3. The Add Account dialog box opens, as shown in Figure 39.2. Fill in your name in the first form field.

FIGURE 39.2 Use the Auto Account Setup tool to help you configure an account automatically.

4. Type the email address for the account you want to add.

5. Type the account’s password.

6. Verify the password by typing it again.

7. Click Next to continue.

8. Outlooks checks the network connection, finds your settings, logs on to the mail server, and then displays a congratulations prompt. Click Finish (see Figure 39.3).

FIGURE 39.3 Outlook verifies your account and settings and logs on to the mail server.

You can now see your new email account listed in the Folder pane in Outlook’s Mail module. When you click the Send/Receive All Folders button on the Home tab, Outlook checks the account for messages. Any messages received appear in the account’s Inbox; click the Inbox to view the messages. Remember, each account’s Inbox keeps a running list of messages received for that account.

After you’ve gathered all the correct information, you’re ready to set up an account. Depending on which type of email service you’re adding, different configuration steps appear. If you’re adding an Exchange account, Outlook prompts you to close Outlook and use Windows Mail settings in the Control Panel. If you’re adding an Outlook.com account, you must enter your server and logon information. If you’re adding a POP or IMAP account, you need to specify the account type and the incoming and outgoing servers.

To start the process, click the File tab and click the Add Account button. So far, this is the same as having Outlook automatically configure the account. When the Add Account dialog box opens, however, you need to click the Manual Setup or Additional Server Types option, as shown in Figure 39.4. Click the Next button to continue.

FIGURE 39.4 Choose the manual option to configure the email account yourself.

Next, select the type of email account you’re adding (such as POP, IMAP, or Microsoft Exchange Server) and click Next.

Depending on what you’re selecting, different options are shown. Figure 39.5 shows the POP and IMAP Account Settings you need to fill in, and Figure 39.6 shows the Server Settings fields for an Exchange ActiveSync service.

FIGURE 39.5 POP and IMAP settings.

FIGURE 39.6 Exchange ActiveSync settings.

After you’ve entered all the appropriate fields, you can click Next and Outlook establishes the network connection.

To access the dialog box, click the File tab to switch to Backstage view. Click the Add Accounts button, then click the Add Accounts command. A dialog box similar to Figure 39.7 opens, with the E-mail tab displayed.

FIGURE 39.7 Use the Account Settings dialog box to make changes to your email accounts.

From the Account Settings dialog box, you can do any of the following:

• To add a new account to the list, click the New button and follow the steps for automatically or manually configuring a new email service to work with Outlook.

• To repair an account, select it in the list and click the Repair button. This reopens the setup box containing the information about the account, which includes the same form fields you used to enter information about the email service; you can recheck the information.

• To change an account, select it in the list and click the Change button. This displays detailed information about the account, and you can make changes, such as setting a new password.

• To remove an account, select it and click the Remove button. Outlook warns you that you’re about to delete the account; click Yes to confirm deletion.

• To change the default account—the account listed to send from in the new message window—click the account and click Set as Default.

• To change the order of your accounts, click the up and down arrows to move the selected account up or down in the list.

A common way to divide a program window into workable areas is to use panes. Most users are familiar with panes from web browsing. Typically, a navigational pane appears on the left or top side of a web page with links that, when clicked, display another page somewhere off to the right or below. Outlook uses panes to divvy up areas of the window. This section covers the various ways you can work with panes to navigate Outlook.

FIGURE 39.8 You can expand and collapse the Folder pane as needed.

You can expand and collapse the pane to free up onscreen workspace. Click or tap the Minimize button located in the upper-right corner of the pane, pointed out in Figure 39.9. When collapsed, the pane folds to a skinny columnar display along the left side of the program window, like the example in Figure 39.9. To expand it again, click the Expand button.

FIGURE 39.9 The Folder pane, collapsed.

You can also control the Folder pane using the Folder pane drop-down menu on the View tab, as shown in Figure 39.10. For example, you can turn the pane off entirely by selecting the Off option. To turn it on again, revisit the drop-down menu and choose Normal.

FIGURE 39.10 You can also control the Folder pane through the View tab.

You can also resize the Folder pane. Just move your mouse pointer over the pane’s right border and drag it to a new size, wider or thinner. You can do the same thing with any pane in Outlook; drag the pane’s border to resize the pane, whether it’s the Reading pane, the message list, or the To-Do bar.

FIGURE 39.11 The Reading pane shows a selected message or file attachment.

To control the Reading pane, click the View tab and click the Reading pane drop-down arrow. Next, select a setting you want to apply. Outlook immediately changes the window to reflect your selection.

FIGURE 39.12 Outlook’s peeks enable you to see your calendar, a contact, or a task list at a glance.

The To-Do bar opens a full pane for peeks, as shown in Figure 39.13. The To-Do bar is not turned on by default. To display it, click the To-Do Bar button on the View tab, and click which part you want to view. You can turn on just one peek or all three. A check mark next to the item’s name indicates it’s displayed; no check mark means the item is turned off. To turn them all off, click the Off command. To turn off individual peeks in the bar itself, you can click the peek’s Close button.

FIGURE 39.13 You can use the To-Do bar to keep different peeks in view.