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I was with Centurylink. They forced me to have Brightspeed. I was assured nothing would be affected. They were wrong. I have never used webmail and have always had my webmail forwarded to my Outlook that I had bought. Since Brightspeed has taken over I am having issues. My Outlook 2021 from Microsoft keeps synchronizing and I my emails either won't go out or take forever to come in or go out and it keeps saying synchronizing folders and I have no clue what that means and why today it started doing that. Brightspeed is no help. Centurylink helped me with the POP info to put in and swore there would be no issues but no longer will talk to me since they said I am a Brightspeed customer and I can't talk to anyone with Microsoft. I don't know why this suddenly started today and Brightspeed had no answers and basically just said good luck. I have work emails that I forward to my outlook so I can print to do my teleworking. It's been over 3 hours and I don't even know why synchronizing is or why it's doing this. HELP. I need it to stop doing that and for my emails to come and go quickly like they were doing yesterday. Any ideas or help anyone can give me.
Using classic Outlook for Windows in business environments
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MS outlook uses auto setup to add the mail account only requires the email address & its password, no settings are shown/used
Hello Janice
I'm Diane, a Microsoft 365 Apps & Services MVP and I'll try to help you today.
Did you remove the account from outlook and add it back?
Is the brightspeed account added to outlook as POP or IMAP? Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. The account type is to the right of the email address.
Sync issues sounds like it is IMAP. If you want it set up as POP, remove the account and add it back using manual set up - after entering the address in the (mostly) white dialog, click on Advanced Options and check to use manual set up before clicking on connect.
Assuming your address is in centurylink.net domain, your POP account settings should be:
Incoming server (choose one)
POP: pop.centurylink.net, Port: 995, Security: SSL
IMAP: mail.centurylink.net, Port: 993, Security: SSL
Outgoing server
SMTP: smtp.centurylink.net, Port 587 TLS if available
-- Diane
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I am so computer illiterate and I do think it's supposed to be pop. Brightspeed did take over for centurylink but they told me nothing would be affected with my email...not true. You still keep your centurylink email but Brightspeed is the new provider. I can't even get emails in until hours later. I don't know how to manually add back. It does say IMAP like you said. They even messed with my folders I had to the side. I am so afraid to remove. So where do I go to remove account and add back. I am so lost on this and so upset on emails I lost that my mom had sent me and she passed away in 2018. I feel hopeless but will print out what you said and hope like heck I don't lose my outlook. All the webmail is supposed to do is forward to my Outlook. Centurylink is the domain even though Brightspeed took over.
When you say remove account do you mean outlook and then add it back doing manual. I have no idea how to remove it and then add back. This is so upsetting. I just had a test email come in that I sent at 2:23pm and it's now 6:43 pm. I don't understand. Feeling helpless since Brightspeed will not talk to you even though it says for support call them. They say...not our problem. It's microsoft not us. But microsoft didn't change my info.
You shouldn't lose any mail - unless they didn't move mailbox contents and didn't have you export it for backup. If you used POP3 previously, the mail is in a pst file.
If you log into the brightspeed webmail, are all your old messages there?
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I just had a test email come in that I sent at 2:23pm and it's now 6:43 pm.
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That could mean there is a problem with their DNS configuration
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When you say remove account do you mean outlook and then add it back doing manual. I have no idea how to remove it and then add back.
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I'll make you a video showing the steps.