The information usually supplied to you by your ISP or system administrator is:

• Type of account (Exchange Server, POP3, IMAP, HTTP, or other)
• Name of your incoming server and outgoing server
• Your user name
• Your e-mail address (for example: someone@example.com)
• Your password

 Note   Sometimes the same server is used for both incoming and outgoing messages, as with Microsoft Exchange Server. For POP3 and IMAP accounts, messages you send are submitted to an outgoing server that supports the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): A common protocol that is used to send e-mail messages across the Internet.) Internet standard and then are delivered to the recipient. Messages you receive are stored in your account on a server that supports the POP3 or IMAP Internet standard.

You can connect in two ways:

• Over phone lines, by using a modem. You can manually establish a connection or you can use dial-up networking to automatically connect when you start Outlook. If you are connecting to a POP3 or IMAP server, your ISP can supply you with the phone number, modem settings, and network protocols required.
• Through a local area network (LAN). Your organization might provide external access to the Internet from your computer through a LAN. Your administrator can provide you with account information and network protocols to gain access to the e-mail servers.

• If you are using Microsoft Exchange Server, you can specify to work online or offline. Online (connected to the server) is the Outlook default. Messages you send or receive are delivered immediately. If you specify to work offline, you can choose how often Outlook connects to the server to send and receive messages.
• If you are using an Internet e-mail account, you can choose how often Outlook communicates with your Internet e-mail server to send and receive messages.
• You can create a Send/Receive group that contains one or more of the e-mail accounts you have set up in Outlook. You can then specify behavior for the group, such as time intervals for sending or receiving messages, or how mail is processed when Outlook is online or offline. With Send/Receive groups you can:
  • Specify whether an account is included when sending/receiving mail.
  • Specify whether mail should be sent, received, or both, from an account.
  • Specify whether attachments should be downloaded.
  • Specify size limits on messages to be downloaded.
  • Specify folders to include when sending or receiving.
  • Specify downloading only headers for new messages.
  • Specify different settings for when Outlook is online or offline.

• When you use an e-mail account with an Exchange server, by default, your e-mail messages are saved on the Exchange server. For other accounts, Outlook automatically creates a default data file to store your messages and other items (item: An item is the basic element that holds information in Outlook (similar to a file in other programs). Items include e-mail messages, appointments, contacts, tasks, journal entries, notes, posted items, and documents.). The data file is a Personal Folders file (.pst).