Outlook.com now supports IMAP and OAuth 2.0

By Joseph Keller
last updated

The Outlook.com team has announced during a Reddit AMA that the email service now supports IMAP and OAuth 2.0. The announced IMAP support was added to increase the potential reach of Outlook, and the addition of OAuth gives developers the ability to build on top of the service, according to a post on the Outlook blog (opens in new tab):

In addition to offering more complete device connectivity, IMAP (along with OAuth) gives developers opportunities to build third-party clients and services that offer value-added scenarios on top of your Outlook.com email. We are excited to launch the first set of services today that integrate with Outlook.com, and look forward to sharing many more in the future.

Outlook.com has long supported Microsoft's own Exchange Active Sync, but that prevented it from being used by many email apps, including Mail on the Mac. Microsoft has announced that TripIt, Sift, Slice, motley*bunch, Unroll.me, OtherInbox, and Context.IO are the first services and applications to take advantage of the IMAP implementation. More services are sure to take advantage of this new support soon.

If you're an Outlook.com user, does this news excite you?

Source: Outlook blog (opens in new tab), via Windows Phone Central

Joseph Keller
Joseph Keller

Joseph Keller is the former Editor in Chief of iMore. An Apple user for almost 20 years, he spends his time learning the ins and outs of iOS and macOS, always finding ways of getting the most out of his iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac.

4 Comments
  • Yep. Been waiting for this for awhile now. Still can't seem to get it to work with Mac Mail though.
  • I have it working with MacMail. Follow the instructions on the Mac support page from Microsoft. I copied my gmail folders over immediately. http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-email/how-to-s...
  • Awesome, but it still does not work with Mac Mail on Mac OS X Mavericks 10.9 DP 7. I've tried the Exchange route, as well as the Other Email Account option. Neither are successful, I can log in but I can't fetch new mail.
  • I am not sure about Mavericks. I am using Mountain Lion, and simply chose, "create new account", I put in an erroneous password so as to get "advanced settings", and from their I chose IMAP and configured it according to the instructions from Microsoft. Everything seems to work. I only find a slight delay between actions down via the client and on the website. But other than that it works great.