Troubleshooting common problems with Microsoft Outlook

Here are some of the common issues with Outlook you might run into and how to fix them.

Cannot send/receive

There are a few reasons this might happen, but you should check your email software/account settings.

If you’re not sure how you can check the settings for your email account, we have separate guides on checking the settings in different types of email software.

Most of the settings are the same, such as the Port numbers and SSL/TLS settings. The only difference will usually be the incoming/outgoing server.

For dedicated email hosting services, the incoming/outgoing server will be ventraip. Email. If you have a cPanel email account, you can usually set mail.mydomainhere.com (replacing mydomainhere.com with your domain) as the incoming/outgoing server. Learn more about obtaining your correct server settings here.

The port numbers are:

• For secure SSL/TLS connections:
  • The IMAP port is 993
  • The POP port is 995
  • The SMTP Port is 587 or 465
• For insecure (non-encrypted) connections:
  • The IMAP port is 143
  • The POP port is 110
  • The SMTP Port is 587

Missing folders

Sometimes you might find that specific folders are not appearing or being synced in your email software. We have separate guides for email software where this problem is most common.

• How to choose which email folders you want to sync in Outlook 2013, 2016 and 2019
• How to select which folders you want to sync in Thunderbird

Your computer isn’t connecting using modern encryption protocols

Some older operating systems or older versions of operating systems do not support modern encryption (TLS 1.2), which can sometimes cause issues relating to our servers.

If you’re using Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, you may have problems connecting because those operating systems either don’t or need to be configured to support modern encryption protocols. Because Windows XP and Windows Vista are ancient now, there is no solution other than to upgrade to Windows 10. For Windows 7, you can force the use of TLS 1.2. However, it’s still best to upgrade to Windows 10.

Any version of Mac OSX 10.9 (Mavericks) or newer supports modern encryption standards, whereas 10.8 (Mountain Lion) and older do not, and you may run into problems. Typically, you can update Mac OSX to a newer version that supports TLS 1.2.

Note that you may also need to update Mac Mail to the latest version to ensure TLS 1.2 is being used.

Are you still having issues?

Our support on issues using this software is limited – we’re happy to verify you’ve put everything in the right place. Please submit an eTicket to our technical support team with screenshots of the configurations you applied per this article, and we will let you know if anything has been missed.

Beyond this, you will need to follow our earlier suggestion of consulting the internet or looking into the vendor’s knowledge base. Click here for Microsoft Office Support.