Office365 SMTP Settings: Set Up + Troubleshooting

Microsoft 365, better known as Office 365 is making buzz as a great alternative to Google for cold email marketing. The problem is that Microsoft’s email platform isn’t designed for cold outreach. 

If you plan to use an Office 365 account for cold outreach, you will want to connect it to a third-party email tool. To do so, you need to know the right Office 365 SMTP settings. 

What is an SMTP? & Why Do You Need It? 

SMTP means “Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.” Microsoft 365’s SMTP lets you send emails via their server. That gives you several benefits such as the following: 

Connect an Office 365 Account to Email Tools

Microsoft 365 as an email platform has a lot to offer, especially if you’re using their apps. But it doesn’t have the features you’d need to scale cold outreach. You need a third-party email tool. 

Knowing Office365’s SMTP settings lets you connect a Microsoft account to any third-party email marketing software. This lets you avoid complicated integrations and unnecessary costs. 

Better Deliverability

Cold email marketing demands deliverability. Sending cold emails to prospects using Office365 from the same SMTP server significantly boosts deliverability. 

To ensure the highest possible deliverability rates, remember to warm up new Office365 accounts, stay within daily sending limits, and follow cold email marketing best practices. 

More Protection Against Spoofing and Phishing

Phishing and spoofing are still prevalent for email marketers. Good thing Microsoft 365 offers some of the highest security protocols among email service providers. 

This ensures that your domains are protected against bad actors. Sender reputation stays at an all-time high, domains remain trustworthy, and more emails land in our prospects’ inboxes. 

Office365 SMTP Settings You Need to Know

Configurations differ between email providers. The good news is that the SMTP settings are universal regardless of which email tool you’re using. Here are the Office365 SMTP settings:

Office 365 lets you send 30 emails per minute, 500 emails per email, and 10,000 emails daily. These are generous numbers. Leagues above Google which only gives 2,000 emails daily. 

But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. 

Office 365 Sending Limits 

You don’t want to go anywhere near these limits. 30 emails per minute is a lot, especially if you’re using a single email address. This can easily trigger automatic spam detection. 

Outlook can interpret your email activity as malicious and add your entire domain or IP to a blacklist. Instead, stick with a daily sending limit of 30-50 emails daily per account. 

If you want to scale sending limits for things like cold email, the best solution is to add more Office 365 accounts. Always remember to warmup new accounts first before using them. 

Office 365 IMAP Settings

Sending emails is half the battle. You also want to receive emails in your inbox, right? To do so, you’ll need Office 365’s IMAP (Internet Messaging Access Protocol) settings. 

POP Setting for Office 365

POP means Post Office Protocol. POP3 is the latest version. Office 365 lets you use POP3. This lets you download emails from a server to a computer.

But, you can only access those emails from that specific computer. IMAP lets you store emails on a server and sync them across multiple devices. If that fits your use case, use these settings: 

Is Office365 SMPT Free?

Short answer—no. Microsoft changed its email services on September 16, 204, ending support for free SMTP. Free Microsoft accounts can’t use SMTP to send emails from third-party apps. 

To use the Office365 SMTP server, you need to pay a monthly subscription that starts at $6.99/month. This plan already lets you send emails to up to 10,000 recipients daily. 

How to Configure Office365 SMTP in Your ESP

Let’s not beat around the bush. Microsoft 365 as an email platform has many features to be desired. That’s why many email marketers choose to use third-party email tools instead. 

But as mentioned, Office365’s SMTP server is one of the best in terms of deliverability and security. Here’s how to configure Office365’s SMTP server for popular email service providers:

Setting Up Office365 SMTP for Instantly.ai

If you’re looking to run cold outreach campaigns using Microsoft 365 accounts, the best email tool for the job is Instantly.ai. You can add as many accounts as you can with no extra costs. 

1. Login to your Instantly dashboard
2. Click on the “Email Accounts” tab on the left side 
3. Click on “Add New” in the top right corner 
4. Find the Office 365 / Outlook option 
5. Follow the instructions for OAuth authentication 

Using OAuth authentication means you can connect Microsoft accounts Instantly with just a few clicks. There’s no need to set up Office365 SMTP settings manually on Instantly. 

However, you need to enable SMTP access for your Microsoft account. To do so, follow these instructions:

1. Go to your Microsoft Admin Center.
2. Open active users
3. Click on the Mail tab, then on Manage email apps
4. Check the Authenticated SMTP box and IMAP
5. Save changes

Settings finish updating after an hour. Then, you can connect your account to Instantly via Oauth and you’ll be good to go. If you bought a Microsoft account on GoDaddy, here’s what to do: 

1. Log in to your GoDaddy account
2. Find My Products
3. Scroll down to the Email and Office section
4. Click Manage All and find the account you want to enable SMTP for
5. Click Manage and Advanced Settings and click on SMTP authentication

Office365 SMTP Settings for Gmail

For many, Gmail is a better email service provider than Outlook. If you want to use Gmail to send emails via Office365’s SMTP, here’s what you need to do: 

1. Login to your Gmail account 
2. Click on the Settings tab on the top right and click “See all settings”
3. Click the “Accounts and Import” tab
4. Find “Send Mail as” and click Add another email address
5. Enter the Office365 SMTP Settings 

Remember that SMTP won’t work on using free Microsoft or Outlook accounts. As of writing, fixes like enabling two-factor authentication and using app-specific passwords don’t work. 

The same goes for POP3 configurations. That means as of now, you can’t send emails via Office365 SMTP and receive emails from the POP3 server using free accounts. 

If you want to view emails going to your free Outlook account on Gmail, the best solution is to use forwarding instead. Here’s how to do so:

1. Go to your Outlook account 
2. Click on Settings 
3. Go to the Mail tab 
4. Find Forwarding and IMAP
5. Enable Forwarding and enter your Google email address 

Office365 SMTP Settings for Thunderbird

Thunderbird and Microsoft 365 accounts go hand-in-hand. It’s one of the most iconic duos in the world of email marketing.

The best part is connecting an Office 365 account or a free Outlook account is as simple as a few clicks. Here’s the step-by-step guide: 

1. Download Thunderbird
2. Enter your Office 365 or Outlook email address 
3. Enter your Office 365 password 
4. Choose whether you want IMAP or POP3 
5. Authenticate using Oauth2 and save settings

Mozilla Thunderbird already has the latest Outlook and Office365 settings in their ISP database. After entering your username and password, an Oauth2 window will pop up for authentication. 

Thunderbird is an excellent choice if you want clean and simple email management. You can access your contact lists from your device, calendar, and tasks. 

Troubleshooting Office365 SMTP

With the latest updates from Microsoft and Office 365, setting up SMTP for third-party tools can be a hassle. Here are some of the most asked questions, issues, and solutions to know: 

Microsoft 365 Disables SMTP By Default

Before entering the Office365 SMTP settings in your email tool, you need to go to your Microsoft 365 admin center and enable SMTP Auth yourself. 

Authentication Errors

If you encounter authentication errors when setting up Office365 SMTP, change the authentication method to Oauth2. 

Username and Password Errors

Just like iCloud, Microsoft also has “app-specific” passwords. They can be generated in the Security tab of your Microsoft profile. Use this instead of your account password for SMTP. 

Key Takeaways

Office365 SMTP offers great security and high deliverability, especially if you’re sending to Microsoft accounts. To recap, here are the Office365 SMTP settings you need to know:

• SMTP Server Address: smtp.office365.com
• Username: Your Office 365 Email Address
• Password: Your Office 365 Password or App-Specific Password
• Port Number: 587 With TLS

Planning on using Office365’s SMTP for cold emails? Then you’ll need an email tool with all the features needed for scaling cold emails and easy Office 365 SMTP setups. For that, we recommend Instantly.ai. Try it out for free today!