If You Cannot Add Gmail Email Account in Outlook, These Troubleshooting Tips Will Help!

Gmail is a popular and free email provider, one of the most popular ones. Outlook on Windows is one of the most popular email clients to read, send, and manage all your emailing needs. Sometimes, it can get tricky to add Gmail account in Outlook.

Gmail Email Account in Outlook

Even though, in the latest version of Outlook, most of the stuff is done automatically by the client. For older versions of Outlook, you would have to manually specify settings like port number, authentication method, and so on. You can still do so by clicking on “Advanced Options” and selecting “Let me set up my account manually.”

Outlook also does a pretty good job of selecting and assigning correct folders and syncing them across the server, like for sent items, deleted items, and junk. There was a time when these default folders would get messed up and you would have to manually set the folder for them.

However, there are still some issues left over that can make adding Gmail account to Outlook a bit tricky. Most of them are because of your settings with the Gmail, not in Outlook. Below we will discuss some of the common reasons behind why you can’t seem to add Gmail to Outlook.

1. Make sure your password is correct. This one might seem obvious but you would be surprised how many times typing an incorrect password is behind the problem. Make sure the password you enter is correct. Also make sure that you didn’t recently changed the password in Gmail, because if you did, you also need to update it in Outlook.

2. You have not enabled IMAP or POP in Gmail settings. You need to first enable IMAP or POP, whichever one you want to use, in Gmail.
   • Go to your Gmail settings (the settings icon on the top right corner),
   • then click on “See all Settings,”
   • Click “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab
   • Enabled POP/IMAP below (and also tweak other settings as per needed)

3. Turn on signing for less secure apps. Gmail for some reason thinks Outlook is a less secure app. Under security settings in Gmail, the option to sign-in for those kinds of apps is turned off by default. If you need to use Outlook with Email, you first have to go to your security settings and then enable it.
   • Sign in to your Google account
   • Go to ‘Security’ > “Less Secure Apps”
   • Turn on access

Google Says turning on access for less secure apps is not recommended. If you want to not do that, other option you have is to turn on two-step verification method, in which Google will either send you a verification code on your other device or some other method for verification while logging in.

If you do turn on two-step verification, When you are signing on Outlook, it will automatically let you do that using Google platform by opening a new window. This is because newer versions of Outlook supports OAuth 2.0 for Gmail accounts. It will be like when you sign in to your Google Account through a browser.

If you are not using the Outlook 2016 or newer versions, you need to get an app password from Gmail to sign-in (if the two-step verification is enabled).

• Go to your Google account, security, under “signing in to Google,” click on ‘app password.’
• Then select the app for which you want the password for.
• Use “Custom” and type in “Outlook.”
• Then select the device in which you are using the app in, which is Windows in this case.
• Then click on ‘Generate.’ It will give you a new app password that you have to use in Outlook (for older versions than 2016).

4. Other common problem many face is not being to see the folders once the account is added. This happens because the folders/labels in Gmail has not been given IMAP access. If you want to see all those folders in Outlook, you have to go Gmail settings > ‘Labels.’ Labels in Gmail are the same things as folders in Outlook. Next to the labels in Gmail settings, there will be an option to “show in IMAP.” IF that is unchecked, check it to allow Gmail to show those folders in IMAP in Outlook. This doesn’t affect if you are using POP to add Gmail to Outlook.

5. If you are using an older version of Outlook, it may be possible that the correct settings associated with Gmail IMAP or POP are not being set. In that scenario, you have to manually check for those settings and make sure they are correct. You can use the settings given below for reference.

Gmail Settings:

Some other lesser common problems when using Gmail with Outlook:

1. Make sure the “remember password” is checked otherwise Outlook will keep prompting you for entering the password every time it has to connect to the server.
2. If you are using Outlook 2002/XP on later versions of Windows (7, 8, or 10), then each time open Outlook, you have to enter the password. There is no workaround to this problem, as Outlook 2002 is incompatible with Windows 7/8/10.
3. Make sure the internet is working and is not too slow. Sometimes when adding an email account (not just Gmail), a slow connection would not let you add an account, even without showing any error.
4. Make sure the default location where Outlook saves the OST file for each IMAP account you add is not on remote server location that is disconnected. Also make sure you have the permission for the folder where Outlook creates and saves the new file while adding the IMAP account.

We hope the above suggestions work for you to add Gmail to Outlook, whether through IMAP or POP.