Outlook tech help?

Carole

How 'bout some ether?
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I might be the last person on earth who doesn't know how to do this. How do I use Outlook as my email program? I know how to use Outlook--I used it for years at my last job and I love it. My problem is (showing my ignorance here) I have email through at&t and I don't know how to connect the two, for lack of a better technical term.

I don't consider myself a stupid person, but I really haven't been able to figure this out. I tried a few years ago and gave up, and now I want to try again.
 

shawkins

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First, you should have gotten a piece of paper from AT&T that lists:

1. the AT&T email servers from which you will be getting your mail. There sould be one server labeled "Incoming" and another server labeled "Outgoing". They will be something like "mail.att.com"
2. your email address
3. your password

If you can't lay hands on it, either go to the AT&T web site and look it up or phone AT&T customer service.

The only Outlook I've got access to at the moment is outlook 2007, but I *think* setting up earlier versions is an almost identical process. If you run into something that doesn't match the directions below, let me know which version of Outlook you're using (this can be found in Outlook under the Help menu by clicking "About Microsoft Outlook")

1. Open Outlook.
2. On the "Tools" menu at the top, select "Account Settings"
3. This should open up a tabbed interface with a bunch of options on it. Click the tab for email.
4. Click "New"
5. Your first choice will be between two radio buttons labeled "Microsoft Exchange, POP3, IMAP, and HTTP" and "Other". Make sure "Other" is NOT selected, then click next.
6. The next screen should have a little box at the bottom that says "Manually configure server settings or additional server types." Check that box. Click next.
7. The next screen has 3 radio buttons that say "Internet E-Mail", "Microsoft Exchange" and "Other". Select "Internet E-Mail" and click next.
8. The next screen is where you fill in the information needed to connect to your remote email server.

Your Name: Carole Whatever
E-Mail Address: [email protected]

Account Type: I'm 95% sure you need to pick POP3 here.
Incoming mail server: This should be on the card you got from AT&T.
Outgoung mail server: ditto

Login information: This should be on the card you got from AT&T
Password: ditto

9. After you've filled out the information, click "Test Account Settings". If it works, yay! If not, try checking the little box that says "Require login using Secure Password Authentication" and click "Test account settings" again. If it works now, yay! If not, try changing the "Account Type" from "POP3" to IMAP and testing again. If that doesn't work, PM me.

Good luck!
 

Carole

How 'bout some ether?
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Thank you thank you THANK you!! I'm up and running now, but with one weird side-effect. When I log into my AT&T email account, it's consistently empty. I didn't realize that would happen. I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. If my computer were to crash (God forbid!!), I'd lose everything, or so it seems. It looks like everything is just automatically being imported into Outlook, and AT&T is bone-dry.
 

Clair Dickson

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If you go into
Email Accounts--> View or Change existing accounts-->
Select your account and click "Change"
Fine the "More Settings" button and click that
Go to Advanced and find "Leave a copy of the message on the server." This means the mail server you use will keep a copy of your email. (I don't know yet how to force Outlook to get the old copies, but this is a start.)