Wednesday, 25th October 2006Configuring Outlook 2003 for Email (POP3)

Setting up a POP3 email account in Outlook 2003

Outlook 2003 is the email client provided with Microsoft Office 2003 (although I believe it is also available to purchase on its own and comes bundled with some versions of Small Business Server).

If you are opening Outlook 2003 for the first time, you can skip this step 1and go to step 2 as Outlook should automatically take you to this point.

For more information on technical aspects of email, have a look at the Email Protocols article here.

Check List - What You Will Need

No matter what anyone tells you and despite all sorts of fancy CDs ISPs give you for configuring your email, all you should really need is:

• Username (Almost always the same as your Email Address)
• Email Address
• Password
• Incoming Email Server (POP3 - this is where your email is stored)
• Outgoing Email Server (SMTP - this is the server you will send your email via - normally your ISPs SMTP server)

Step 1 - Viewing the E-mail Accounts List

In Outlook 2003, go to Tools > E-mail Accounts on top menu,

Step 2 - E-mail Accounts

Click on Add a new e-email account and click next

Step 3 - Select Server Type

Select POP3 from the list and click next

Step 4 - Internet E-mail Settings (POP3)

Here you must enter the bulk of the information for your email account:

Your Name
This is your real name and is what will appear along with your email address in the "Sender" field when you send emails to other people - it can be whatever you like

E-mail Address
This is your full email address

User Name
This is the username for your email account - this is almost always the same as your full email address.

Password
The password given to you by your email provider.

Incoming mail server (POP3) and Outgoing mail server (SMTP)
Your email requires servers for two things; recieving emails (POP3) and sending emails (SMTP), these services can both be provided by the same server but generally they are not. The POP3 server is provided by whoever provides your email account and the SMTP server is generally provided by your ISP (Internet Service Provider).

When you have finished entering the information, click "Test Account Settings".

Step 5 - Test Account Settings

This process sends an email to you from yourself, if you get all ticks here and after a few minutes the email comes through, your all done!

Step 6 - Congratulations

Microsoft deems that setting up your email is a deed worthy of congratulations.