Connected Accounts

Hi, I'm Diane and I'm happy to help you today.

The Connected Accounts feature was disabled July 1.

When Microsoft removed connected accounts from Outlook.com accounts not using the feature back in May 2021, they said anyone using connected accounts would keep them, but due to changes around the Microsoft cloud services, Microsoft disabled the Connected Accounts service for everyone on July 1. Microsoft did not do a good job sharing that it was going away - if you did not visit the Sync Mail page, you would not see the notification. I noticed the banner below around April 1st.

This is my article on connected accounts: https://www.slipstick.com/outlookcom/outlook-com-connected-accounts/

If you prefer using the Outlook.com interface to read your mail, you can add the accounts to new Outlook. While its not quite the same as connected accounts (each mailbox will be separate), it has the same interface as Outlook on the web.

Forwarding mail to Outlook.com is also an option, although it’s not one I recommend now that more domains are using SPF and DMARC to identify potentially spoofed emails and drop them.

--Diane

Disclaimer: slipstick.com is a website I run as a Microsoft MVP, and the content is much more accurate and relevant than a general internet search. Although the website is in English, there are translation options under the search box.

Open new Outlook - if you don't have an account in it, the Add account dialog will open - enter your address and Outlook should find the account then ask for the password.

If you change classic Outlook desktop software that is installed with Office desktop software, that might be better - or Thunderbird or eM client. New Outlook is good if you prefer the outlook.com interface.

You'll need to go Account Settings and add an account; then you'll need some technical details like server name, SMTP / POP3 / IMAP port details, etc, that you'll need to get from the email provider. You would (I presume) have known these at some point when you set up the Linked Account.

I've just been doing all this too, now that Linked Accounts stopped working (just a few days ago, for me, not straight away on the 1st of July).

Once done, each account will appear separately in Outlook (complete with 10-15 generated non-deletable subfolders like 'RSS Feeds'. At the moment there's no way to hide all the clutter, especially not in Outlook (New).

A major problem is that in Outlook (New), there's no capability to actually move emails between accounts, so for now for me, they are all accumulating in the wrong Inbox, and I can't move them to correct subfolders.

So, definitely try to add the SMTP / IMAP accounts in Outlook, and avoid Outlook (New) until it's ready.

Thanks, really appreciate that, would you mind explaining what is involved in 'adding accounts to new Outlook'?

Hi! Thanks for all your super helpful replies related to this issue - I had no idea about it until I came across one of your replies in a thread similar to this one about Microsoft stopping the connected account service on web.

When you say 'new outlook', just to clarify do you mean the outlook desktop application and not outlook.com (i.e. the web version)? We all use macbooks, so just wondering where we stand with 'new outlook' etc.