How to Set Up Your Hostking Email in Microsoft Outlook

How to Set Up Your Hostking Email in Microsoft Outlook

To set up your Hostking email account in Outlook, add a new account, choose IMAP, and enter your mail server settings manually. This guide covers Outlook 2016, 2019, 2021, Microsoft 365 and the new Outlook for Windows — the steps are nearly identical across all of them.

We recommend setting up using IMAP rather than POP3. IMAP keeps your emails synced across all your devices, so an email you read on your phone will also show as read in Outlook, and nothing gets stuck on one device.

What you'll need before you start

• Your email address — e.g. you@yourdomain.com
• Your email password — this is the password you set when creating the account in DirectAdmin or cPanel. If you've forgotten it, reset it from the Email Accounts section of your control panel
• Your mail server address — this is mail.yourdomain.com (replace yourdomain.com with your actual domain name)

Finding your exact settings in cPanel

1. Log in to cPanel and go to Email → Email Accounts
2. Find your email address in the list and click Connect Devices (sometimes labelled Set Up Mail Client)
3. Scroll past the automatic configuration scripts to the Mail Client Manual Settings section — these values work with any mail app on any device
4. Note the server names, ports and encryption shown under Secure SSL/TLS Settings

Finding your exact settings in DirectAdmin

1. Log in to DirectAdmin and go to E-Mail Accounts
2. Click the + icon next to your email address
3. Select Download Outlook Configuration, or note the settings shown underneath the address

Your mail server settings

Keep these handy as you'll need them during setup. If your welcome email or control panel shows different port numbers, use those instead — both sets work.

Step-by-step setup in Outlook

Step 1 — Open Outlook and start adding an account

Open Microsoft Outlook. Click File, then Add Account.

If Outlook is opening for the first time, it will prompt you to add an account automatically. Skip to Step 2.

Step 2 — Try the quick setup first

Type your full email address and click Connect. Outlook will try to detect your settings automatically and may ask for your password again.

If this works and Outlook confirms your account was added, you're done. If it fails or picks the wrong settings, continue with the manual steps below.

Step 3 — Switch to manual setup

Enter your email address again, click Advanced options, tick Let me set up my account manually, then click Connect.

Step 4 — Choose IMAP

On the account type screen, select IMAP.

Step 5 — Enter your incoming server settings

• Server: mail.yourdomain.com
• Port: 993
• Encryption: SSL/TLS

Click Next.

Step 6 — Enter your password

Enter your email account password and click Connect. Outlook will now test the incoming server, then move on to the outgoing server automatically.

Step 7 — Enter your outgoing server settings

• Server: mail.yourdomain.com
• Port: 465 (or 587 if 465 does not connect)
• Encryption: SSL/TLS for port 465, or STARTTLS for port 587

On the Outgoing Server tab, make sure My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication is ticked, and set it to use the same username and password as the incoming server. This step is the one people miss most often, and skipping it causes email to arrive but never send.

Click Next or Connect.

Step 8 — Confirm and finish

Outlook will test the connection and confirm your account has been added. Click Done.

Your inbox will begin syncing. If you have a lot of existing email this may take a few minutes.

Using the new Outlook for Windows

The new Outlook for Windows has a simplified setup screen with fewer manual options than classic Outlook. Enter your email address and password and let it connect automatically; if it cannot connect, or you don't see an option to enter server settings manually, follow the classic Outlook steps above instead — you may not be using the new Outlook yet.

Using Outlook for Mac

The settings are the same as Windows: IMAP on port 993 with SSL, SMTP on the same host. After adding the account, click More options and set Authentication to Use Incoming Server Info, and leave Always use secure password unchecked.

If Outlook tries to set up automatically and gets it wrong

Newer versions of Outlook, especially Microsoft 365, sometimes try to auto-detect your settings and get them wrong, resulting in a connection error. If this happens:

1. Click Back or Change account settings
2. Make sure you selected IMAP, not Exchange or Microsoft 365
3. Manually enter the server settings from the table above
4. Confirm the ports are 993 for incoming and 465 (or 587) for outgoing
5. Confirm SSL/TLS is selected for incoming, and SSL/TLS or STARTTLS matches the outgoing port you chose
6. If Outlook warns about a mismatch between the server name and your domain name, choose No to keep using the server name you entered manually

Common problems

"Something went wrong — we couldn't set this up automatically"
This means Outlook couldn't auto-detect your settings. Click Try again or go back and choose Let me set up my account manually to enter the settings yourself.

Outlook keeps asking for your password
First check the password is correct by logging into webmail at mail.yourdomain.com or via your control panel. If webmail works fine, the password is correct — delete the account from Outlook and re-add it manually. Also make sure your username is your full email address, not just the part before the @.

Emails arrive but you can't send
Your outgoing (SMTP) settings are likely wrong, usually because outgoing authentication is switched off. Go to File → Account Settings → Account Settings, select your account, click Change, then More Settings → Outgoing Server. Make sure My outgoing server requires authentication is ticked and Use same settings as incoming is selected, and check the SMTP port is 465 with SSL/TLS, or 587 with STARTTLS.

Emails send fine but don't arrive
Check that the email account exists in your control panel and that your domain's nameservers are pointed to Hostking. You can also log into webmail to confirm whether emails are arriving there — if they are, the issue is with Outlook's sync settings.

Sent emails go to the recipient's spam folder
This is not an Outlook issue, it's an SPF/DKIM configuration issue on your domain. See our article: Why Are My Emails Going to Spam? SPF, DKIM and DMARC Setup Guide.

"Your IMAP server wants to alert you to the following: Please log in via your web browser"
This error sometimes appears if you've entered the wrong password too many times and the account has been temporarily locked. Wait 15 minutes, then try again with the correct password.

Connection times out or never completes
Check that your firewall or antivirus software isn't blocking Outlook from reaching the mail server, especially on ports 993 and 465.

Need help?

If you're still having trouble after following these steps, our support team is available every day via live chat on the Hostking website or by opening a support ticket in the client area.