Unable to connect IMAP account to Outlook for iOS8

Anonymous
2015-07-28T22:44:23+00:00

I have installed the Outlook app on an iPad and iPhone with the latest iOS8. I have an IMAP email account but the app is unable to connect to it. 

The native iOS email client on both devices will connect to this IMAP account OK.  But when I enter the same settings in the Outlook app's Advanced Settings entry screen (which are the server, etc. settings provided by my ISP), it comes back with a message that it cannot connect.

I note that the entry screens in the current Outlook app differ from those shown in the relevant Office365 knowledge base article here:

https://support.office.com/en-au/article/Set-up-email-on-iPhone-iPad-or-iPod-Touch-b2de2161-cc1d-49ef-9ef9-81acd1c8e234?ui=en-US&rs=en-AU&ad=AU&fromAR=1#BKMK\_IMAPorPOP

The article shows screenshots with options to select/deselect SSL and enter port numbers. These options don't appear when I use the IMAP setup option in Outlook for iOS. 

Note that when iOS makes the connection, it does not use SSL or ask for port numbers. These parameters can only be accessed via the advanced account settings for the account AFTER the device has added the account.

I should add that I also have an Exchange email account, which can be set up in both the iOS email client and the iOS Outlook app without difficulty. 

And also that the Outlook app exhibits the same behaviour on Android - i.e. the Android email client lets me set up the IMAP account but Outlook for Android is unable to connect.

Outlook | Outlook for mobile | Outlook for iOS | For business

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  1. Anonymous
    2016-03-07T17:36:12+00:00

    The fix suggested did not work for me. It just rejects the settings.

    Oddly, I have a fix that seems to work and I have no idea why.

    Instead of my standard IMAP and SMTP settings which have the following format (and which works on my desktop and laptop versions of Outlook):

    IMAP      email.mydomainhostname.co.uk

    SMTP     email.mydomainhostname.co.uk

    I now enter:

    IMAP      imap.mydomainname.co.uk:993

    SMTP     smtp.mydomainname.co.uk:465

    ....all other settings (passwords, username etc) are the same on all devices.

    I have no idea why this works for me, I'd be interested to see if it works for others? I found this fix some months ago and it has only come up again now because I have just changed to a new domain host. 

    T23

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  2. Anonymous
    2016-03-06T22:29:55+00:00

    A version of this worked for me as well. Here are the steps I took that have me working again.

    My published port setting are: IMAP 993 and SMTP 587.

    I first deleted the account in Settings -> Delete  Account -> Delete from all Devices (This option did not remove the app from my other devices???)

    Settings -> Add Account -> IMAP -> Show Advanced Settings

    Enter the information requested. For the IMAP and SMTP hostnames, just enter the server addresses. Do not include the :993 or :587 ports in this step.

    Click the check-mark at top to process account. You will receive a dialog telling you there is not a secure connection available. Click the Login button to attempt an unsecured connection. You will receive another failure dialog telling you to check your SMTP settings.

    Return to account settings page and enter the port number for the SMTP hostname (in my case :587) immediately after the hostname address. i.e. smtp.server.com:587. Do not enter the port number for IMAP.

    Click ok again to process. You will again receive the unsecure dialog. Click login to continue. After a short time, the account process should finalize and establish the account.

    Check your account and see if it is communicating with the server as expected. 

    I attempted many different variations of this process, and this entire process is the only one that worked reliably across multiple devices. Also, trying to use the :993 port for IMAP caused repeated failures. I realize it seems cumbersome and redundant, but it worked. Hopefully a fix to this bug can be pushed out soon. I also tried to circumvent the entire process by entering the smtp port setting during initial setup, but that produced a failure to establish a connection as well.

    Good luck.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-02-24T16:12:48+00:00

    Yes the issue is definitely exclusive to Outlook. My imap settings work fine on every other email program that exists. In fact, the only reason I'm even caring about this right now is because one of our reps is a big outlook guy and just got an ipad. I believe the easiest workaround is going to be setting up davmail to eliminate any non-uniform/compliant settings I may have with my server.

    http://davmail.sourceforge.net/index.html

    If I can set this up and disguise it as something outlook for ios will recognize, then it should work fine no worries. I'm just looking for the opportunity to work on this and perhaps I can post a workaround for those affected by this, who would like to continue to use certain obscure configurations of imap through this particular app.

    If I could question microsoft engineers about this problem I would ask what extra layer of non-compatibility does the exchange ios app add that other freeware and even older outlook services didn't feel the need to implement? What isn't this compatible with?

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  4. Anonymous
    2016-02-23T16:35:21+00:00

    I'm not connecting to Outlook.com.

    Im connecting to my own imap server.

    And yes, built-in ios mail.app works just fine.

    Anyway I've solved it now as per my first comment.

    Cheers

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  5. Brian Tillman [Outlook MVP 2007-2019] 25,925 Reputation points
    2016-02-23T16:29:22+00:00

    Why are you using an IMAP account? Why not an EAS account? IMAP cannot sync calendar or contacts. EAS can.

    Can you connect to the mailbox using the built-in iOS Mail app? Add the account in Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendars>Add Account. Choose "Outlook.com" as the account type if logging into http://mail.live.com/ shows "Outlook.com" at the left end of the menu bar or choose "Exchange" if you see "Outlook Mail" at the left end of the menu bar.

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