New Outlook and your Kualo email: what changed and what to use instead

Microsoft's new Outlook routes non-Microsoft email through its own cloud. This guide explains what has changed, why it matters for your data, and which alternatives connect directly to your Kualo mailbox.

If you have tried to add a Kualo mailbox to the new version of Outlook and it will not connect, you are not doing anything wrong. Microsoft has changed how the new Outlook works, and the change affects every email provider that is not Microsoft, ourselves included. It applies whether you are on Kualo Zimbra email or a standard mailbox on your hosting. This guide explains what has changed, why we do not recommend the new Outlook for your email, and the alternatives that work properly and keep your email on our servers.

Is this a problem with my Kualo email?

No. Your mailbox is working normally, which you can confirm by signing in to webmail in a browser. The problem is in the new Outlook itself, and it affects every email provider that is not Microsoft, not just us.

Two separate things are going on, and it helps to keep them apart:

Microsoft has deliberately changed the new Outlook so that email from non-Microsoft providers is routed through Microsoft's own servers. This is by design, not a fault.
That same system also has a known fault that makes account setup fail at random, so the same mailbox will sometimes set up on one attempt and refuse on the next.

Neither of these is something we can change at our end.

The short version

The new Outlook is a different application from the Outlook you may have used for years, and it no longer connects to non-Microsoft mail servers the way the old one did.
The only way it will connect to a Kualo mailbox is over IMAP, and when it does, it routes a copy of your mail through Microsoft's own servers rather than talking to ours directly.
For most people the best options are Apple Mail, our webmail, or Thunderbird. All of them connect straight to us, so your mail stays on our servers.
If you specifically need Outlook, the classic version still works, but Microsoft is retiring it, so treat it as a stopgap rather than a long-term home.

What has changed

"New Outlook" is not an update to classic Outlook. It is a separate application, rebuilt around Microsoft's web technology, and it is gradually replacing classic Outlook on both Windows and Mac.

Classic Outlook connected directly to whichever server you pointed it at. The new Outlook has dropped that approach for non-Microsoft servers. When you add a mailbox that is not a Microsoft account, the only option it offers is IMAP, and it then routes that connection through Microsoft's cloud rather than connecting to our servers directly.

If you are on Kualo Zimbra email, you may have tried the Exchange option, since Zimbra normally supports Exchange-style connections. That will not work in the new Outlook either, because its Exchange option is now built only for Microsoft 365 and Microsoft's own servers, not for compatible services like Zimbra. Standard mailboxes use IMAP in any case, so for those the IMAP behaviour below is the whole picture.

Why your account will not connect

When you add a Kualo mailbox to the new Outlook, the only account type it will accept is IMAP. On the face of it that should be fine. The problem is what the new Outlook does with it.

Instead of your computer logging in to our server, the new Outlook passes your email address, password and server details to Microsoft, and Microsoft's servers log in on your behalf. A copy of your mailbox is then synchronised into Microsoft's cloud, and the app works against that copy rather than against us directly.

Two practical things follow from this.

First, set-up is unreliable. Because the connection is made by Microsoft's infrastructure rather than your own device, a temporary fault at their end can be cached and then stick, so the same account refuses to set up over and over even though there is nothing wrong with the mailbox. It is common to set up several identical accounts and find that one or two will not connect for no obvious reason, while the rest work first time. Retrying often returns the same cached failure.

Second, and more importantly, your mail no longer stays with us.

The data sovereignty issue

This is the main reason we steer business customers away from the new Outlook.

Once you connect a Kualo mailbox to it, a copy of your email, and in some cases your contacts and calendar, is stored on Microsoft's servers, and Microsoft holds the username and password to your mailbox. Your messages pass through and are retained by Microsoft under Microsoft's own terms and privacy policy, regardless of the fact that you deliberately chose an independent provider.

For personal email, some people will not mind. For business email it matters a great deal:

If you are bound by a confidentiality agreement, or you handle client data in a regulated profession such as legal, financial or healthcare work, that data has now passed through and been copied to a third party you never contracted with.
If you are subject to UK GDPR and you have chosen to keep your data out of large US-based clouds, the new Outlook quietly undoes that choice.
You lose the assurance that your email lives only on our infrastructure, which is a large part of what you are paying us for.

None of this is something we have done, and it is not specific to Kualo. It is simply how Microsoft has built the new Outlook, and it affects every non-Microsoft mail provider in exactly the same way. We would far rather be straight with you about it than have your data leave our servers without you realising.

What we recommend instead

Every option below connects directly to our servers, so your mail, and your credentials, stay with us. Pick whichever suits how you like to work. You can find the exact connection settings for your mailbox in the guides linked at the end.

On a Mac: Apple Mail

Apple Mail comes built into macOS and is the simplest replacement for Outlook. Add the account using the IMAP settings for your mailbox - see How to set up a mail account using IMAP on Apple Mail for step-by-step instructions. If you are on Kualo Zimbra email on the Professional plan or higher, you can instead add it as an Exchange account using the guide Setting up a Zimbra Exchange email address in Mac Mail, which also syncs your contacts and calendar.

Any device: webmail

For a standard cPanel mailbox, see Getting started with webmail - you can add /webmail to the end of your domain, or open webmail directly from cPanel.

Windows, Mac or Linux: Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is free and connects directly to us over IMAP. It is a good choice if you want a full desktop email application that looks and feels a little like Outlook, without the new Outlook's behaviour. See How to configure an email account in Thunderbird for setup instructions.

On a phone or tablet

Add the account using the IMAP settings for your mailbox. On Kualo Zimbra email on the Professional plan or higher, you can instead add it as an Exchange account - see Setting up a Zimbra Exchange email address in Android for Android devices - which syncs mail, contacts and calendar together. Either way it connects straight to us.

For iPhone and iPad, see How to set up an IMAP email account on your iPhone or iPad.

If you specifically need Outlook

Classic (legacy) Outlook still connects to your Kualo mailbox properly. Two things are worth knowing before you rely on it:

Microsoft is retiring it. On Mac it is no longer updated as of late 2025, and on newer Mac builds the option to switch back to it may not appear at all. On Windows it is supported until 2029.
Because of that, treat classic Outlook as a temporary measure rather than a long-term setup. If you are configuring a new device, one of the options above is a safer bet.

To switch a Mac back to classic Outlook, open Outlook, go to the Help menu and choose Revert to Legacy Outlook, if that option is present in your version.

If you are on Windows and need to configure classic Outlook, see How to configure a secure IMAP email account in Outlook 2016.

If you still want to use the new Outlook

You can, over IMAP, as long as you accept that a copy of your mail will be synchronised through Microsoft's cloud as described above. We do not recommend this for business email, but the decision is yours. Note that when the app asks to sync your account to the Microsoft Cloud, there is no way to decline and carry on, so if you are not comfortable with that, please use one of the other options.

Where to find your connection settings

The exact servers and ports depend on which type of mailbox you have:

Kualo Zimbra email: see Getting started with Zimbra enterprise email for IMAP, Exchange, and calendar and contact settings.
Standard mailbox: your settings are in cPanel under Email Accounts, using Connect Devices next to your address. See Finding the email client configuration details in cPanel if you are not sure where to look. Our email setup guides walk through this for Apple Mail, Thunderbird and mobile devices.
Ports and encryption: see What ports do I use for outbound email? and Updating existing email connections to use SSL for a quick reference on secure connection settings.

Need a hand?

If you would like help getting set up on any of the options above, start a chat or open a support ticket and we will be glad to get you connected.