Set up E-Mail Using the Windows 8 Mail App

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You can use the Windows 8 Mail app to access your email account by using your email address and password. The Windows 8 Mail app is built in to Windows 8 and Windows RT.

Warning

If you are using a cloud-based email account, such as a Microsoft Office 365 account, you must register your account before you can set up your email in Windows 8 Mail. For more information, see “What else do I need to know?”.

How do I set up email using the Windows 8 Mail app?

  1. Open the Windows 8 Mail app.

  2. If you see the Add an account button when you start Mail, select Add account > Exchange. If you don’t see the Add an account option, open the main charm menu on the right side of the page, and then select Settings > Accounts > Add an account > Exchange.

  3. On the Add your Exchange account page, type your email address and password, and then select Connect. Make sure that you enter your full email address (for example, tony@contoso.com) as your user name.

    After you select Connect, Mail will perform an online search to find your email server settings.

  4. If you see the message “Your email account is successfully configured.”, select Finish. If you see the message “The mail server for <email address> needs this PC to be more secure before it starts syncing”, select Next. Then, in the Make my PC more secure box, select Enforce these policies. When you see the message, “Your email account is successfully configured” select Finish.

Note

If Mail isn't able to set up your account, see "What else do I need to know?" later this topic.

View or change Windows 8 Mail app settings

Option

Description

Settings

Account name

The name of the account that displays when you view your account in Windows 8 Mail.

N/A

Download new email

How often email is downloaded from the email server to the Windows 8 Mail.

As items arrive

Every 15 minutes

Every 30 minutes

Hourly

Manual

Download email from

The quantity of email that you want to download from the server.

The last 3 days

The last 7 days

The last 2 weeks

The last month

Any time

Content to sync   

Specify what you want to synchronize to your PC.

Email

Contacts

Calendar

Automatically download external images

Whether you want Windows 8 Mail to automatically download images. If you set this to Off, you can choose to download external images in messages you receive on a per message basis.

On or Off

Use an email signature   

Create an email signature that displays at the end of each message you send from your account.

Yes or No

Email address

The email address for your account.

N/A

Password

The password that was entered when you set up your account.

N/A

Domain

The domain for your account. This setting will be empty if you did not enter a domain when you set up your account.

N/A

Email username

The name that you want to appear in the From box of messages you send from this account

N/A

Server

The name of your email server

N/A

Server requires SSL

Whether the email service you are using requires a connection using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer)

Select or clear

Show email notifications for this account

Whether you want Windows 8 to display notifications when you receive new messages in this account.

On or Off

What else do I need to know?

  • If your e-mail account is the type that requires registration, you must register it the first time you sign in to Outlook Web App. Connecting to your e-mail account through Outlook will fail if you haven't registered your account through Outlook Web App. After you sign in to your account, sign out. Then try to connect using Outlook. For more information about how to sign in to your account using Outlook Web App, see How to Sign In to Outlook Web App. If you have trouble signing in, see FAQs: Sign-in and Password Issues or contact the person who manages your e-mail account.

  • If Mail can't successfully connect you to your account, do one or more of the following:

    • Verify that you are using the latest version of Windows 8 Mail. To check for updates to the Windows 8 Mail App, from the Start screen, go to Store > Settings > App updates > Check for updates.

    • Wait a few minutes and try again.

    • If you need to connect to your email account immediately, use a Web browser to your account using Outlook Web App. For information about how to connect using a Web browser, see How to Sign In to Outlook Web App. You can also connect using an email program that supports POP or IMAP. For information about how to connect using a POP or IMAP email program, see Use IMAP or POP E-Mail Programs.

    • If you know the name of the person who manages your mailbox (sometimes called an email administrator), contact them and report the error you're getting when you try to connect.

  • An Outlook account in Windows 8 Mail is an account that uses Exchange ActiveSync to connect to your email server. All of the Windows Communications apps in Windows 8 (Mail, People, Calendar, and Messenger), can make use of Exchange ActiveSync accounts. Adding an account in Mail will make their contacts and calendar data appear in the other apps and vice versa.

  • Windows 8 Mail doesn’t support the S/MIME message format. If you are sent a message in the S/MIME message format, Windows 8 Mail displays an email item with the following message body: “This encrypted message can’t be displayed.” To view email items in the S/MIME format, we recommend that you open the message using Outlook Web App, Microsoft Outlook, or another email program that supports S/MIME messages.

  • In Windows 8 Mail, you may also be able to connect to your account by using the Add an account > Other account setup option. When you connect using this method, you can set up your account using IMAP and SMTP. To do this, you need to manually enter your IMAP and SMTP server settings to set up your account. Connecting to your account using IMAP and SMTP lets you send and receive email for your account. IMAP does not let you synchronize your contacts and calendar information between Windows 8 Mail and your email server. For information about using IMAP, see Use IMAP or POP E-Mail Programs. For information about how to look up your server settings, see View POP3 and IMAP4 Settings.

What if I want to know more?