How to use Outlook to manage multiple email accounts

How to add other email accounts to Outlook

Constantly switching between your personal email account, your work email account, and the email account you use to sign up for things online can feel like a job. Thankfully, Microsoft Outlook users can manage multiple email accounts through their Outlook account. This is an attractive option because of Outlook’s strong security features and mailbox sorting structure.

Your Outlook can change everything

Spend less time organizing your life and more time enjoying it with Outlook

Learn More

Outlook users can even view and modify emails from other email providers in one place. For people who like for everything to be all in one place, the ability to manage multiple accounts from within Outlook is a relief.

Before you merge your different email accounts into Outlook, there are a few steps you need to take first:

• Enable the IMAP setting. This will allow Outlook to connect to your other email accounts and be able to send and receive messages.
• Get app-specific passwords. If you’ve enabled two-factor authentication on any of your other email accounts, you may be required to provide an app-specific password that’ll grant Outlook access to your inbox. You can generally find these in your other email account’s security settings.

Once you’ve completed these initial steps, it’s time to add your other email accounts to your Microsoft Outlook account:

• Launch Outlook and go to the File tab.
• Within the File tab, select Info.
• At the top, you’ll see your account information, including a dropdown menu that contains your Outlook email address. Below this is a button with a plus sign that reads Add Account that you should select.
• Type in your alternate email address and click Connect.
• Enter the app-specific password for your other email address and click OK.

You should be able to access data from these other accounts within your Outlook account!

Pain points while using multiple email accounts in Outlook

For those who like to have their data consolidated, using Outlook to manage other email accounts is refreshing. However, there are a few things to keep in mind and issues to be aware of.

Since your email data now lives in more than one place, it’s vulnerable to attacks. Make sure you’re protected from cyber-attacks that can obtain unauthorized access to your computer and its network. Some other things to consider when managing other accounts with Outlook include:

• There may be some growing pains when you initially link your accounts, and you may have some difficulty finding the emails you’re looking for.
• Calendar events may be tricky to manage, given that they all work off different software. If you prefer one to another, you may need to add calendar events manually.
• You’ll need to take extra care to make sure that you’re responding to each email with the right email account.
• If you depend on lots of Outlook plug-ins, they may not work as efficiently if you’ve configured Outlook to work with multiple email accounts.

With all that in mind, if you’re new to using Outlook to manage other email accounts, take the time to organize your inbox folders so that you can find what you’re looking for quickly. You can also set one of the accounts as your default account for easier management.

Another way to manage multiple email accounts from within Outlook is to use Outlook’s built-in mail sorting options like flagging and color categories. This can help you keep track of the nature of certain messages and their sources. It’s in the best interest of an Outlook user to take their time to manage multiple accounts.

Microsoft Outlook has a high level of built-in security, flexible options, and lots of account configuration options. It’s easy to work with and since it’s built into the M365 suite of productivity apps, it makes it an essential part of anyone’s workday.