Troubleshooting email program setup

Valid for Mail Basic and Mail Business.

This article lists various causes and solutions to help resolve problems when setting up email programs.

If the automatic setup of the email account in Microsoft Outlook fails, first check whether an Autodiscover record has been created in your domain’s DNS settings. If no Autodiscover record exists for your domain, create one.

For further information, please see the following article:

Checking the Autodiscover Settings of Your Domain

When prompted for your username and password, check that your full email address is entered as your username in your account settings. Also ensure that you have entered the correct password. If necessary, you can set a new password at any time. For further information on this, please see the article Changing your email password.

If, after entering the correct password, you are repeatedly asked for your username and password, delete the account from your email program and then set it up manually. For further information, please see the following articles:

Manually Setting Up an Email Account in Microsoft Outlook 2019

Setting up an email account manually in Microsoft Outlook 2016

Set up email account in Gmail on Android smartphone

Check whether your email address is a forwarding address. A forwarding address only forwards incoming emails to another address; it does not function as a mailbox in its own right and cannot be used to store or send messages. Forwarding addresses therefore cannot be set up as accounts in an email program.

Check the email account settings. The server details are listed below:

Server information for IMAP accounts

Account type: IMAP

Incoming mail server: imap.ionos.com

Connection type/encryption: SSL/TLS

Incoming mail server port: 993

Outgoing mail server: smtp.ionos.com

Connection type/encryption: SSL or TLS/STARTTLS

Outgoing mail server port: 465 for SSL, or 587 for TLS/STARTTLS

Server information for POP3 accounts

Account type: POP3

Incoming mail server: pop.ionos.com

Connection type/encryption: SSL/TLS

Incoming mail server port: 995

Outgoing mail server: smtp.ionos.com

Connection type/encryption: SSL or TLS/STARTTLS

Outgoing mail server port: 465 for SSL, or 587 for TLS/STARTTLS

• Make sure that the Require logon using Secure Password Authentication (SPA) option is disabled in the POP and IMAP account settings.

• If sending emails fails, go to POP and IMAP account settings > More Settings > Outgoing Server and check whether the options My outgoing server (SMTP) requires authentication and Use same settings as my incoming mail server are enabled.

• Under POP and IMAP account settings > More Settings > Advanced, check that Use the following type of encrypted connection is set to SSL for the incoming mail server.

• Under POP and IMAP account settings > More Settings > Advanced, check that Use the following type of encrypted connection is set to Auto for the outgoing mail server.

• Thunderbird flags email addresses as invalid if they contain umlauts (ä, ö, ü), for example john.doe@müller.com. In this case, you must enter the domain part of your email address in ASCII-compatible encoding (ACE) form, also known as Punycode. The article Umlaut addresses at a glance shows you how to do this.

• If you receive a server error message when sending emails, open Thunderbird’s account settings and change the following settings for the outgoing (SMTP) server:

  Port: 587

  Connection security: STARTTLS

  Authentication method: Normal password

If you are unable to send and/or receive emails despite having the correct settings, security software – such as a virus scanner or a firewall – may be the cause. Check the settings of your security software and, if necessary, contact the software manufacturer.

Another possible cause is an outdated email program, such as Outlook 2007, which no longer meets today’s security requirements. In this case, switch to an up-to-date email program. One free and tried-and-tested option is Mozilla Thunderbird.