Setting Outlook 2007 to use IMAP
With Microsoft Outlook, you can optionally use IMAP connections to read incoming mail. Using IMAP
(instead of the more widely used "POP3" method) allows you to keep your messages on our servers
instead of downloading them to your computer.
Keeping your messages on our servers can be useful if you read mail two completely different ways.
For example, if you use both Outlook and Webmail, each program will share the same Inbox and
will therefore know what messages you've read. (If you always read mail using just a single copy of
Outlook, using IMAP won't make a difference and probably isn't worth the effort.)
Follow our standard instructions for setting up Outlook 2007
You'll first need to follow the standard instructions to set up Outlook 2007, with the following two differences:
- choose IMAP as the "Account Type" (instead of "POP3").
- enter INBOX in the "Root folder path" box. In addition, the "Incoming server (IMAP)"
port should be 143, and the "Outgoing server (SMTP)" port should be 25 or 26 or 587.
If you previously set up your mailbox as a POP3 account in Outlook, you'll unfortunately need to
delete that account, then go through the setup instructions again.
Seeing folders other than Inbox
By default, Outlook will only show the Inbox folder. However, IMAP also provides additional folders
named Drafts, Sent, and Trash, and you can create other folders using our Webmail system.
To see these other folders in Outlook, you need to "subscribe" to them:
- Open the Tools menu and choose the IMAP Folders command. The "IMAP Folders" window opens.
- Click Query.
- Select the desired folder then click Subscribe. An icon appears next to each subscribed folder.
- Repeat for any additional folders, as desired.
- Click OK to close the window.
Note: even though you can use this procedure to display the Trash folder, Outlook will continue to
use its own "Deleted Items" folder for deleted messages. Likewise, Outlook will not store drafts in
the server Drafts folder. This is a limitation of Outlook 2007. However, you can get Outlook to store
sent mail in the IMAP server's Sent folder by following the procedure below.
Having Outlook save sent messages in the IMAP Sent folder
By default, if you tell Outlook to save copies of sent messages, they will be saved in the Sent Items
folder on your local computer, not in the folder named Sent on the IMAP server. You can tell Outlook
to save sent messages in the Sent folder on the IMAP server by following these instructions:
- Open the Tools menu and choose the Account Settings command. The "Account Settings"
window opens. - Select the IMAP account, then click Change. The "Change E-mail Account" window opens.
- Click More Settings. The "Internet E-mail Settings" window opens.
- Click the Folders tab.
- Click the Choose an existing folder or create a new folder to save your sent items for this
account in option. - Expand the list of folders, and choose the Sent folder. (If it is not available, make sure that
the "Root folder path" on the "Advanced" tab contains INBOX.) - Click OK to close the "Internet E-mail Settings" window.
- Click Next and then Finish to close the "Change E-mail Account" window.
- Click Close to close the "Account Settings" window.
Outlook is now setup to use IMAP
You're finished! Try sending yourself a test e-mail message to make sure it works.