Connect Office 365 to your Outlook desktop application

 

You can set up your Outlook desktop application so you can read and send Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses email through Outlook as well as by using Microsoft Outlook Web App in your browser. If you use more than one email address, you can set up Outlook so that you can choose which email address you work with each time you open the program.

Note

You can use Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 or Microsoft Outlook 2010 but both programs can’t be installed on the same computer at the same time.

Read and send Office 365 email from Outlook on your desktop

Note

Before setting up your Outlook desktop application to Office 365, make sure that one of the following conditions is met.

  • Your company is using the initial onmicrosoft.com domain that was automatically created when your company signed up for Office 365.

    OR

  • Your company is using a custom domain and has finished all of the steps in the setup wizard, including redirecting the domain’s name servers to Office 365.

    OR

  • Your company is using a custom domain with Microsoft Office 365 for professionals and small businesses without redirecting the domain’s name server records to Office 365 (or if you’re using Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises), you have to create a CNAME record for the domain that enables Autodiscover. This makes sure that Outlook can connect to the correct server running Microsoft Exchange Server.

    To learn more, see Add your domain to Office 365 but continue to manage your domain's DNS records. (For Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises, see Create DNS records in Office 365.)

To add Office 365 to your Outlook on your desktop, follow these steps:

  1. To open Outlook 2010, on the Start menu, click All Programs > Microsoft Office > Microsoft Outlook 2010.

  2. Click File and under Account Information, click Add Account.

  3. In the Add New Account dialog box, select Email Account, and then type your name and your Office 365 email address and password. (Your email address is also your Office 365 user ID.)

  4. Click Next. Outlook connects to Microsoft Exchange Server for Office 365 and automatically confirms your account information and sets up Outlook.

  5. Follow the instructions to complete adding your account to Outlook.

After your Office 365 account has been successfully added to Outlook, you’ll be able to send and receive Office 365 email in Outlook on your desktop. If you have a different email address that you’ve used with Outlook and want to be able to access both, use the next procedure to manage both email accounts in Outlook.

Set up Outlook to ask you which email account you want to use

If you use Outlook on your desktop to read and send email from more than one email address (account), you can set it up so that you’re prompted to choose which account you want to use whenever you start Outlook. This is handy if you use several different email addresses and want to go back and forth between them.

  1. If Outlook is running, exit the program.

  2. On the Windows Start menu, click Control Panel > Mail.

    If you’re in Category view, click User Accounts > Mail.

  3. In the Mail Setup dialog box, in the Profiles section, click Show Profiles.

  4. In the Mail dialog box, select Prompt for a profile to be used.

  5. Click OK.

Now, every time you open Outlook, you’re asked to select an account profile. You can access only one account at a time. If you’re already in Outlook, to use a different email account, exit and restart Outlook.

See Also

Set up your desktop for Office 365