How to set up your email in Outlook (IMAP and SMTP)

Outlook talks to imail over IMAP, which means your mailbox stays on the server: the same folders and the same read state, whether you open Outlook on your desktop, the webmail in a browser, or the imail app on your phone. Outlook's automatic setup only recognises a handful of large providers, so for an imail address you add the account manually. With the values below it takes about two minutes.

Your imail server settings

• Incoming — IMAP: mail.imail.com.tr, port 993, encryption SSL/TLS
• Outgoing — SMTP: mail.imail.com.tr, port 587, encryption STARTTLS
• Username: your full address, for example name@imail.com.tr
• Password: the password you use to sign in to the imail webmail

Incoming and outgoing share the same host name — there is no separate smtp. address to hunt for. If your company uses imail with its own domain, the server name does not change either: it stays mail.imail.com.tr and only the username differs (you@yourcompany.com).

Adding the account, step by step

1. Open Outlook and go to File → Add Account (Tools → Accounts on macOS).
2. Type your imail address and choose Advanced options → Let me set up my account manually.
3. Select IMAP as the account type.
4. Incoming mail: server mail.imail.com.tr, port 993, encryption SSL/TLS.
5. Outgoing mail: server mail.imail.com.tr, port 587, encryption STARTTLS.
6. Tick My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication and set it to reuse the incoming credentials.
7. Enter your full address as the username and your imail password.
8. Finish, then send yourself a test message and check that it appears in Outlook and in the webmail.

Automatic setup for company domains

If you use imail with your own domain, two optional DNS records let Outlook find these settings by itself: autoconfig and autodiscover as CNAME records pointing to mail.imail.com.tr. With them in place, a colleague only types an address and a password. Without them nothing breaks — the manual steps above use exactly the same values.

One detail matters here: always type mail.imail.com.tr as the server name, even on a custom domain. Our TLS certificate is issued for that host name alone, so an invented name such as mail.yourcompany.com triggers a certificate warning even when everything else is correct.

Making Outlook's folders match the server

On the server your mail lives in INBOX, Drafts, Sent, Junk, Trash and Archive. Outlook prefers its own names — Sent Items, Deleted Items — and left alone it will create duplicates next to the server folders. Open the account's advanced settings and point Sent, Drafts and Deleted at the server folders that serve the same purpose. Everything you send from Outlook then also shows up in the webmail's Sent folder.

If a folder is missing from the list, subscribe to it: right-click the account name → IMAP Folders → Query, then tick what you want to see. Spam filtering runs on the server before Outlook ever sees a message, and anything caught is delivered straight to Junk, so you can leave Outlook's own junk filter switched off.

Errors you may run into

"The username or password is incorrect." Nine times out of ten the username is missing its domain part. name is not enough; the server expects name@imail.com.tr.

Mail arrives but will not send. SMTP authentication is off. Turn on "My outgoing server requires authentication" and let it reuse the incoming credentials.

The connection fails or hangs. Check that port and encryption match: 993 goes with SSL/TLS, 587 goes with STARTTLS. Picking SSL/TLS on port 587 is the single most common mistake.

Port 587 is blocked on your network. Some office and hotel networks block outgoing 587. Our server also accepts SMTP on port 465 with SSL/TLS — use that instead.

Outlook asks for an app password. imail does not use them. Two-step verification protects the web sign-in; IMAP and SMTP take your ordinary mailbox password.

Outlook, webmail and the phone apps together

Because of IMAP, none of these hold separate copies. Read a message in Outlook and it is read on your phone; file something from the webmail and Outlook shows it in that folder. What differs is notification speed: the imail apps for Android and iOS receive new mail as a push notification the moment it lands, while Outlook checks in on its own schedule — so your phone will often buzz first.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a special password for Outlook? No. IMAP and SMTP expect your ordinary imail password.

Can I add an address on my company's own domain? Yes, with identical settings: server mail.imail.com.tr, ports 993 and 587, and your full address at your own domain as the username.

IMAP or POP3? IMAP, unless you have a specific reason not to — POP3 pulls mail off the server and breaks the sync described above. See IMAP vs POP3.

Will my webmail folders show up in Outlook? Yes. A folder created in either place appears in the other, once you are subscribed to it.

Setting up imail elsewhere

The same server details are always available in the webmail under Settings → Email clients; sign in at imail.com.tr/posta. For phones, our iPhone and Android guide covers the built-in apps and the one-tap iOS profile, while the imail apps ask for nothing but your address and password — see the apps page. Team addresses on your own domain are covered on the business page.