How to set up Outlook with Gmail
Gmail is the e-mail address you mainly use to send and receive communications with your contacts or with the online services to which you are registered. Since you want to make accessing your mailbox on PC more practical, you have decided to use Microsoft Outlook, the email client included in the Office package.
This software is in fact one of the most advanced for managing e-mails: it is possible not only to read and send e-mails but also to manage calendar appointments, organize the contacts directory and perform various other operations. Therefore, wondering how to configure Outlook with Gmail appears more than legitimate, if the goal is to try to manage virtual correspondence in a better way. So here I am, ready to give you a hand to understand how to do it best.
In case you want to do something similar on a smartphone or tablet, I will also explain how to configure the Outlook app with your Gmail mailbox in a few simple steps. All you have to do is keep reading: everything is explained below.
Index
- Preliminary operations
- How to set up Outlook with Gmail on a computer
- How to set up Outlook with Gmail on smartphones and tablets
- How to synchronize Outlook and Gmail
Preliminary operations
Regardless of whether you want to set up Outlook with Gmail on your computer or mobile device, there’s one important thing you need to do before anything else: set up Google’s email service to download emails. in an external program.
To do this, first log in to Gmail, by going to its official website and entering your login details, if you are asked to do so. Once the main page of Gmail is displayed, click on the gear icon located at the top right and click on the item View all settings, attached to the menu that is shown to you.
Now click on the Forwarding and POP / IMAP tab, move the mouse cursor to the Download via POP section and check the box next to Enable POP only for messages arriving from now on . Then make sure that at the wording When messages are downloaded via POP the option keep the Gmail copy in Inbox is selected from the drop-down menu, so that the messages downloaded via Outlook are not deleted from the Gmail servers.
At this point, move to the IMAP Access section of the Gmail management panel, put the checkmark next to Activate IMAP and click on the Save Changes button located at the bottom, in order to save the changes and enable both IMAP support and POP3 support in Gmail.
Using the IMAP protocol instead of the POP one is highly recommended, as it is a more modern protocol that guarantees the connection and synchronization of mail on various devices at the same time. The POP protocol, on the other hand, is older and is designed for the use of e-mail on a single station, with the deletion of messages from the servers once downloaded locally (except for the activation of special backup functions).
How to set up Outlook with Gmail on a computer
Having made the necessary clarifications above, if you intend to understand how to configure Outlook with Gmail on your computer, proceed as follows.
If you are starting Outlook on your PC for the first time, the program itself will ask you to set up an e-mail account, through a special and simple wizard. If, on the other hand, it is not the first time that you use Outlook on your computer, after starting the program click first on the File button located at the top left, then on the Account Settings item for two consecutive times and, finally, on the New option.
The configuration procedure for incoming and outgoing mail will then be started. At this point, enter your Gmail address in the text box that you find next to the wording E-mail address and then press the Connect button at the bottom. Once this is done, you will be shown a login screen for the Google account: type again your Gmail address and the password associated with the account and then press the Allow button, to ensure the correct functioning of Outlook with Gmail.
After entering the required data, a message on the screen will indicate if the configuration was successful. Generally speaking, you shouldn’t have any problems, as Microsoft Outlook can integrate seamlessly with Gmail to read and send an email. At the end of the procedure, remove the checkmark on the Configure Outlook Mobile also on my phone box and press the Done button.
If Outlook is not able to correctly configure the Gmail address, repeat the procedure I indicated in the previous paragraphs for adding the account and, before typing the Gmail address in the appropriate text box, make sure that the box Allow manual configuration of the account is activated under the heading Advanced options.
Once this is done, select the IMAP or POP item on the screen that is shown to you. As I already mentioned in the previous chapter, the IMAP protocol (the one I recommend you use) is more modern and is therefore to be preferred. Once you have made your choice, in order to configure Outlook with Gmail, fill in the fields displayed on the screen by entering the following values.
IMAP
- Incoming mail server (IMAP): gmail.com
- Port: 993
- Requires SSL: yes
- Requires authentication: yes
- Outgoing mail server (SMTP): gmail.com
- Port: 465 or 587
- Requires SSL: yes
- Requires authentication: yes
POP3
- Incoming mail server (POP3): gmail.com
- Port: 995
- Requires SSL: yes
- Requires authentication: yes
- Outgoing mail server (SMTP): gmail.com
- Port: 465 or 587
- Requires SSL: yes
- Requires authentication: yes
Carried out the indicated steps and filled in the fields displayed on the screen as I suggested you do, you should finally be able to configure Outlook with Gmail on your computer.
To check that everything went the right way I suggest you take a look at the Inbox section, making sure that your email messages are present and/or send a new email.
If you have any problems using Outlook or if you want to know more about specific functions, I suggest you take a look at my guide on how Outlook works.
If in addition to the mail you want to configure the Gmail address book in Outlook, you can rely on various solutions, such as the use of the GO Contact Sync Mod tool which is completely free, open source and supports all versions of Office. I told you about it in detail in my tutorial on how to sync Gmail contacts.
How to set up Outlook with Gmail on smartphones and tablets
In addition to being a client for computers, Outlook is also available as an app for smartphones and tablets. So if you intend to find out how to configure Outlook with Gmail on your mobile device, the first operation you need to do is download the aforementioned app from Android (on the Play Store or from alternative stores ) or from the iOS / iPadOS App Store.
On Android, all you have to do is press the Install button in the Outlook app tab on the Play Store to download and install it. On iPhone and iPad, on the other hand, press the Get button and unlock the download and installation via Face ID, Touch ID or Apple ID password.
Now, launch the Outlook app via its quick launch icon and, on the home screen, press the Add account button. If you have already configured other accounts on the Outlook app, you can add new ones by pressing the thumbnail at the top left and pressing the + icon; then tap on Add an account.
Now, simply press the Add Google account button and log in with one of the Gmail addresses already configured on the device or press the Add another account item, to log in with another Google account. Once this is done, press the Allow button located at the bottom of the screen that opens and that’s it.
Once these steps have been carried out, the procedure by which to configure Outlook with Gmail will be completed. All the settings and parameters necessary to use Gmail through the Outlook app will therefore be automatically detected and in a few moments you will finally be able to access your electronic correspondence.
To verify that everything went well, I suggest you take a look at the Inbox section, making sure that your email messages are present and/or send a new email.
How to synchronize Outlook and Gmail
If you use Outlook.com (Microsoft’s WebMail service), you can synchronize the latter’s messages with Gmail messages by following the instructions in my tutorial on how to synchronize Outlook with Gmail. This way you will be able to view the messages received on your Gmail account in Outlook or vice versa.