Outlook doesn't get mail - you can do that

With Outlook you have a quick overview of all your mails, contacts, appointments and notes. However, if the program does not check the mails, you will miss all important messages. In this practical tip, we will show you what you can then do.

Outlook does not retrieve mails: check provider and internet

You can quickly fix this error in Outlook with the following tricks:

• Make sure you are connected to the internet correctly. To do this, call up any page in your browser.
• There may be problems with your provider. Therefore, go to the website of your email provider to test this.
• If this cannot be reached, no mails can currently be sent and received. Try again later.
• Maybe your email account has been blocked due to abuse. In this case, contact your provider.

Another solution: Outlook does not retrieve mails

If the provider or the Internet connection is not responsible for Outlook not calling up mails, you should check the configuration:

• Open the account settings in Outlook. You can reach this via the menu item "File".
• Make sure that you have entered the correct server data for your email provider.
• The correct user name (usually the e-mail address) and the associated password must also be stored here so that a connection can be established.
• You can find more information on which server is used for which service on your provider's website.
• If the previous tips did not help, follow the instructions in this guide to set up your account in Outlook again.

These instructions are based on Outlook 2010 under Windows 7. You can find out in our next practical tip what can happen if Outlook no longer starts.