How to Manually Configure Outlook (Office 365)

After several attempts of trying to configure Outlook using the wizard - I decided to configure Outlook manually. I ran into a few speed bumps as the configuration for Office 365 is slightly different than an On-premise configuration:

Manually configure Outlook

To manually configure Outlook to connect to Exchange Online, follow these steps:

1. Determine the mailbox server name and the proxy server URL. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Sign in to the Office 365 portal.

b. Click Outlook to open Microsoft Outlook Web App.

c. In the upper-right corner of the page, click the Help icon (the question mark), and then click About.

d. On the About page, locate and then note the following items:

§ Mailbox server name: Example: TO get the server name you would need to go to OWA click on about copy the Exchange Client Access server name for example CH1PRD0602CA004.namprd06.prod.outlook.com you would need to only keep the CH1PRD0602 and you would put CH1PRD0602.mailbox.outlook.com as the server name.

§ Host name: This is the proxy server URL. Example CH1PRD0602.outlook.com

2. Manually configure Outlook to connect to Exchange Online. To do this, follow these steps:

a. Click Start, click Control Panel, and then click Mail.

b. Click Show Profiles and then click Add.

c. Type a name for the profile, and then click OK.

d. Click to select the Manually configure server settings or additional server types check box, and then clickNext.

e. Select Microsoft Exchange, and then click Next.

f. In the Server box, type the mailbox server name that you noted in step 1d.

g. Make sure that the Use Cached Exchange Mode option is selected.

h. In the User Name box, type your user name (for example, alias@contoso.com), and then click More Settings.

i. Click the Connection tab.

j. Make sure that the Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP check box is selected, and then clickExchange Proxy Settings.

k. In the Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange box, type the proxy server URL that you noted in step 1d.

l. Make sure that the Only connect to proxy servers that have this principal name in their certificate check box is selected, and then type msstd:outlook.com.

m. Click to select the On fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP check box, and then click to select the On slow networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP check box.

n. Under Proxy authentication settings, select Basic Authentication.

Note Users can also select Negotiation Authentication if the administrator enabled this option in the Office 365 portal.

o. Click OK two times.

p. Click Check Names. When the server name and the user name are displayed with an underline, clickNext.

q. Click Finish

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  • Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises
  • Microsoft Office 365 for small businesses