How do I configure Outlook Express?

This article will walk you step by step through configuring Microsoft Outlook Express 6 for use with your CPanel pop mail accounts.

Step 1 - Create pop mail account(s)

Before configuring Outlook Express, you'll need to create an e-mail account in your site control panel.  When your hosting was originally provisioned, the admin user (the user whose name you use to log into your control panel), was set up with a mailbox, so there is at least one mailbox already created for your site.  If you want to configure Outlook Express for this primary account, you may skip to step 2.

To create additional pop email accounts, log into your site control panel and click on the Email Management link, as shown to the right of this paragraph.

Then, click on the POP Email Accounts link.

Note that if you've changed the default control panel theme, your control panel may not look like the images provided in this article.

Once you click on the POP Email Accounts link, the control panel will display a list of existing accounts, which will look something like this:

In the above list, only the primary (admin) user is listed.  We'll create a new pop email account by click on the Add Account link (not show above).  The Add Account page looks like this:

The first field is the username, the portion of the e-mail address before the @.  Enter whatever you wish for the username.  In our case, we're adding a "pastor" mailbox to our fictional mychurch.org site.  The second portion of the first field (the portion after @), contains a list of domains and subdomains associated with your account.  You can set up unique e-mail addresses for each parked domain , addon domain or subdomain you've set up on your account.

The password you enter should be as secure as possible.  Try to break up words with numbers to protect against brute force dictionary attack, where a hacker uses dictionary words to attempt to hack into your e-mail account.

The quota, in megabytes, is the space you want to allot to this mailbox.  This space is part of your overall hosting storage area.

Click the Create button to create the account.

Step 2 - Create a mail account in Outlook Express

Now, launch Outlook Express, click on the Tools menu, and choose Accounts..., as shown in the image below:

Step 3 - Enter Your Name

After selecting the Accounts... option, Outlook Express' Internet Connection Wizard will display:

Enter the name you want displayed in the From column of recipients to whom you send e-mail.  In our example, we're creating the e-mail account This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , for Pastor John Smith.  Pastor Smith would simply like "Pastor Smith" to display in the From column when he sends e-mails, so we enter "Pastor Smith" here.

Step 4 - Enter E-mail Address

Click the Next button, and enter the e-mail address.

The e-mail address for this account is This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. , so enter that address on this page.

Step 5 - Enter E-mail Server Names

Click Next to enter your e-mail server names.

The name of your mail server is mail. followed by your domain name.  In this case, the server name for the mychurch.org site is mail.mychurch.org. Enter mail.mychurch.org for both mail server names, incoming and outgoing, unless your ISP blocks port 25, as many larger ISPs do.  If your ISP blocks port 25, enter your ISPs mail server name as the outgoing mail server.  Contact your ISP for details.

Step 6 - Enter Internet Mail Login Details

Important: Your account name is different depending on whether your setting up Outlook Express for your admin user, or for additional users you've created.  If you are configuring Outlook Express for the admin user, enter ONLY the username portion in the Account name.  In this case, the admin user is "mychurch".  If we were configuring Outlook Express for the This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. mailbox, we would enter only "mychurch" as the Account name.

However, we're configuring Outlook Express for a secondary mail account, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .  For additional accounts, the full e-mail address is necessary in the Account name, so here we enter This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

In the Password field, enter the password you created for the account in Step 1, and make sure you check the Remember password option so you won't have to retype the password each time you send or receive e-mail.

Step 7 - Complete the Internet Connection Wizard

Step 8 - Configure SMTP Autentication

Now that the mail account has been created, there is still one step left.  The Internet Connection Wizard didn't allow us to configure SMTP Authentication, so we have to open up the newly created account and change a setting.

Double click on the account name, or highlight it and press the Properties button.

Select the servers tab, and check the box next to "My server requires authentication", as shown above.  Then click the Settings button.

Here, make sure the first option, "Use same settings as my incoming mail server", and click OK.  Then click OK on the account properties dialog to save the SMTP autentication settings.

That's it, at this point, the mail account is ready to use.