Setting up your email in Outlook

Outlook needs four things to connect to your Flashcloud mailbox: the server address mail.yourdomain.com, the right ports, SSL/TLS turned on, and your full email address as the username, not just the part before the @. Most setup failures come from missing one of those four, usually the username or the port pairing.

The steps differ depending on which Outlook you're running. Microsoft has shipped several versions with different account wizards, so pick your version below.

New Outlook (Windows and Mac)

The redesigned Outlook, now the default on Windows and Mac, tries auto-discovery first and often can't find custom hosting settings. When that happens:

1. Go to File > Add Account (or click your account icon > Add Account).
2. Enter your full email address and click Connect.
3. When auto-detect fails or offers the wrong provider, choose Advanced options and select IMAP.
4. Enter these values:
   • Incoming mail (IMAP): server mail.yourdomain.com, port 993, encryption method SSL/TLS
   • Outgoing mail (SMTP): server mail.yourdomain.com, port 465, encryption method SSL/TLS (or port 587 with STARTTLS if 465 is blocked on your network)
   • Username: your full email address on both incoming and outgoing
5. Enter your mailbox password when prompted.

For the full settings reference, including the fallback hostname to use before your domain's DNS is pointed at us, see Email server settings (IMAP and SMTP).

Classic Outlook (Windows desktop)

Classic Outlook's manual setup gives you more control, which helps when auto-discovery guesses wrong:

1. File > Add Account.
2. Type your email address, then click Advanced options and check Let me set up my account manually before clicking Connect.
3. Pick IMAP from the account type list.
4. On the Incoming mail screen, enter mail.yourdomain.com, port 993, encryption SSL/TLS.
5. On the Outgoing mail screen, enter mail.yourdomain.com, port 465, encryption SSL/TLS (or 587 with STARTTLS).
6. Confirm My outgoing server requires authentication is checked and set to use the same username and password as incoming. Classic Outlook sometimes hides this under a "More Settings" button on the Outgoing Server tab.
7. Enter your password and finish.

Outlook on Mac (non-new) and Outlook mobile

Older Outlook for Mac and the Outlook mobile app follow the same pattern: add account, let auto-detect try, fall back to manual IMAP with the same four values above. On mobile, look for Settings > Add Account > Add Mail Account, then choose IMAP when the app asks. The general cross-client flow, including notes on IMAP vs POP3, is covered in Setting up your email on phones and desktop apps.

Outlook-specific failures

A few problems come up specifically in Outlook more than other clients:

• "Cannot connect to server" with no other detail. Almost always a port/encryption mismatch. IMAP is 993 with SSL/TLS, SMTP is 465 with SSL/TLS or 587 with STARTTLS. Pairing 993 with STARTTLS, or 465 with no encryption, fails silently in Outlook rather than showing a clear error.
• Outlook auto-fills the username as only your name or the part before the @. Overwrite it with the full address, you@yourdomain.com. This is the single most common Outlook authentication failure.
• Outgoing mail fails but incoming works. Outlook sometimes doesn't carry authentication settings over from incoming to outgoing automatically. Check the outgoing server's authentication settings explicitly and re-enter the password there.
• New Outlook won't offer an "Advanced options" link. It only appears after you type the email address and Outlook's first auto-detect attempt fails or times out. Wait for that attempt to finish rather than closing the dialog.
• Domain not yet pointed at Flashcloud. If you haven't updated nameservers yet, mail.yourdomain.com won't resolve correctly. Use the temporary hostname shown on your service detail page under Services instead, then switch to mail.yourdomain.com once DNS propagates.

When to contact support

If you've matched every setting above exactly and Outlook still won't authenticate, open a ticket from the portal under Support > New ticket, or use live chat. A real person can check whether the mailbox itself is active and confirm the correct server value for your account, since some accounts show a server hostname that differs slightly from the domain pattern above.