Emailing is one of the core experiences of any business operation. With an Office 365 subscription, you can typically access your email from the Outlook web app, or set up your email account with various email clients across different phones or PCs. One of those clients happens to be the Outlook desktop app, as included with many Office 365 subscriptions.
In this step-by-step guide, we’ll give you a look at how you can set up and manage your email account in the Outlook desktop app. The process is simple and straight forward. In as little as 5 minutes, you can be up and running and sending emails from your computer or laptop, without having to visit the web.
Setup via the File option
Typically, Outlook will greet you with a first-time step-by-step wizard to set up an email account if you’ve never used it before. This is the easiest way to get started with Outlook. However, in some rare cases, the wizard might not appear. In this case, you’ll need to manually set up your email by visiting the file menu. The manual set up process is very similar to the initial setup, and the steps are below.
- Head to File in Outlook and click on the Add Account button.
- Type in your email address in the pop-up Outlook box
- Press the blue Connect button
- If you’re using an Exchange account, Google, or a POP account which requires advanced security settings, choose the Advanced Options drop down menu. If your account is POP or IMAP, you’ll then want to choose the Let me Set up my Account Manually option and input the appropriate fields. Microsoft has a list of suggested settings here.
- Sign in with your password
Once you sign in, Outlook will auto-fetch most of the content from your email account. That will include all of your emails from the inbox, folders, and more. You’re now free to email from the Outlook desktop app!
Managing your new email account in Outlook
With your email account set up in Outlook, you’ll likely now want to know how you can manage it. This just involves a visit to the File option once more. From there you’ll see a drop-down menu listing the names of any accounts you’ve added. You’ll also see the ability to add more accounts. Some other options for managing Outlook accounts are explained below.
- Account Settings: This first setting allows you to add or remove accounts, switch and manage Outlook profiles, or change account settings. Other options here allow you to download your contacts, set up SMS alerts for emails, and more. There’s even an option to change your profile picture, and access your email from the web
- Automatic Replies: This setting will let you set up Automatic Replies if you’re out on vacation, sick, or not avaiable for answering messages.
- Tools & Mailbox Settings: If you’re concerned about storage space of Outlook, these tolls allows you to manage the size of your mailbox. It also can help you clean up your mailbox by emptying the deleted items folder. Finally, it also can help you move old items to an Outlook file.
- Manage Rules and Alerts: This option is for setting up rules for email messages, and alerts for whenever items are auto-moved.
- Manage Add-Ins: This final tool is for managing your add-ins for Outlook
The wrap-up and other tips and tricks
As you can see, setting up your email account with the Outlook desktop app as part of Office 365 is easy. You just need to follow a few easy to understand prompts, and then visit the File menu again to manage your account. We have previously explained how you can attach files in Outlook, recall an email, and even given a look at some of our favorite Outlook tips and tricks. Fell free to check it out, and let us know how Outlook is working for you by dropping us a comment below.
