Nokia N9 + Outlook 2013 Preview + 365 Account

I guess every Nokia N9 user might be a bit interested in Office 365 mailbox as it is the easiest way to get a relatively cheap Exchange Mail with your own company domain, together will all its benefits, i.e. mail, calendar, to-do's, and contacts, everything cross-synced in all your mobile devices and desktop computer.

Well, truth be said, Google Apps for Business also offers similar benefits, but it uses ActiveSync, which does not allow you simple syncing with Outlook 2010/2013 and your Nokia N9.


Nokia N9, like many other smartphones, does support ActiveSync, but for reasons unknown to me, tasks and contacts do not always get synced correctly. Outlook 2010, you might say, supports Google Apps - but only if you use additional software like Google Calendar Sync (for free version of Apps) or more advanced Google Apps Sync if you use Google Apps for Business.

Office 2013 with Outlook 2013 offers support for ActiveSync, but only for Hotmail account (strangely enough, duh). Any attempt to set-up Google accounts will end in failure. I'm just wondering whether it is Google's or Microsoft's failure, but according to several sources the shortcoming will be fixed with the coming of retail version of Office 2013, and is reportedly due to ActiveSync version incompatibility.

Microsoft Mail for Exchange (in Office 365) is the only way to get your Nokia N9 synced properly with outlook, without any add-on software like Google Calendar Sync or Google Apps Sync.

I guess it goes without saying that you should start with creating an Office 365 account at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/. I recommend choosing the 30 day trial period for $6 small business monthly plan or the cheapest hosted mail $4 plan depending what you're looking for. Compare Office 365 plans here.
Once you have decided on the plan you want and completed the registration process, you can proceed with the following instructions. The following are the exact steps for Outlook 2010 on Windows 7, but it also works on Office 2013 Preview. These steps come from MigrationWiz Blog. Mind you these instructions are for manual setup - use them only if any other attempts to set up Office 365 mail in Outlook 2013 resulted in Outlook freezing, crashing or not responding (happened to me).1. Find your server informationThe first thing to do is locate your server information to plug into your new Outlook profile.

1. Login to Office 365 OWA (i.e. Outlook Web Apps)
2. Click on the "question mark" icon on the upper right of OWA
3. Click About
4. Find the entry for Host name and write it down as you will be using it later.

2. Create new Outlook profile in Outlook 2010 or 2013 Preview

1. Open Control Panel
2. Click Mail
3. Click Show Profiles
4. Click Add
5. Enter a new name for the profile. i.e. Your email address
6. Click OK
7. Click Manually configure server settings or additional server types
8. Click Next
9. Select Microsoft Exchange
10. Click Next
11. Enter the host name (that you wrote down from the previous section) in the field Microsoft Exchange server but repace outlook.com with mailbox.outlook.com.  For example if your host name is ch1prd0502.outlook.com, you would enter ch1prd0502.mailbox.outlook.com
12. Enter your email address in the field User Name
13. Click More Settings
14. If you are prompted with an error that the action cannot be completed, click OK
15. Click on the Connection tab
16. Select Connect to Microsoft Exchange using HTTP
17. Click Exchange Proxy Settings
18. Enter the host name (that you write down from the previous section) in the field Use this URL to connect to my proxy server for Exchange
19. Select On fast networks, connect using HTTP first, then connect using TCP/IP
20. For the drop down Use this authentication when connecting to my proxy server for Exchange, select Basic Authentication
21. Click OK
22. Click OK
23. Click Check Name
24. Enter your User Name and Password
25. Click OK
26. Your profile should now have resolved and the correct Microsoft Exchange server should be displayed
27. Click Next
28. Click Finished
29. Click OK

3. Configure your Nokia N9

1. Go to Accounts, add account, Mail for Exchange

Email Address user@yourdomain.com

Username       user@yourdomain.com

Password        [yourpassword]
Domain         [leave it blank]
Sever Address   m.outlook.com

If your own domain fails to work, it might be because you haven't waited the recommended 72 hour after changing DNS configuration at your domain registrar. If you are not using your custom domain, however, you might be well off using the "yourdomain.onmicrosoft.com" which is automatically generated by Outlook 365 and should work perfectly.

Enjoy!