Outlook and Archiveopteryx

Outlook and Outlook Express are two rather different mail readers for Windows, both of which exist in several different versions. They're often confused with each other, so we cover them together.

Outlook can access mail using IMAP and mostly submit outgoing mail using SMTP submission. Outlook also has POP support, but it's not necessary to use that, its IMAP support works better.

Outlook supports the IMAP IDLE extension, but has a bug which can cause an accidental logout if Outlook is inactive and no mail arrives for three hours.

We suggest setting these two variables in archiveopteryx.conf:

use-smtps = enabled auth-login = enabled

use-smtps enables support for a nonstandard variant of SMTP, which some versions of Outlook prefer to use when submitting mail.

Outlook needs some configuration to use SMTPS/submission. The exact details vary. Generally, it is necessary to select This server requires an encrypted connection, This server requires a secure connection or similar. It may be necessary to change the port from 25 to 465 (for SMTPS) or 587 (for SMTP submission). It is also necessary to select Mail server requires authentication or similar.

auth-login enables a nonstandard authentication mechanism which some versions of Outlook need. If this is not enabled, Outlook's error message can be very confusing.

In case of questions, please write to info@aox.org.

About this page

Last modified: 2010-11-19
Location: aox.org/clients/outlook