Outlook, Outlook Express, etc. email not working in France

By | 26/07/2012

Webmail users need read no farther.

On arriving in France many people find that their email cannot be sent when using Outlook, Outlook Express and other email clients.  Emails are received as normal but new mail, replies and forwards refuse to move from the outbox.

It’s annoying to say the least. Your email system worked perfectly well before leaving the U.K.

It’s easy to do I know but don’t blame your mail client or your email service provider.

Many people have had their email set up by an IT engineer or it was set up when you initially hooked up with your email service provider so they may not have a clue as to where to look to solve the problem.

And so to the problem. The problem is with Orange who block port 25 (this is the port that your email is normally sent through) to any domain but smtp.orange.fr so that emails have to be sent via the Orange mail server. This is almost the complete opposite practice of most providers who accept any sending domain server address provided that it is sent securely i.e. with a username and password.

The reason for this they say is apparently to reduce spam but is a confusion for those people who do not know about setting up email systems and I would estimate that accounts for about 80% of the population.

The problem can be solved by altering the outgoing mail server setting. In Outlook go to Tools, then click Email Accounts, click View or change existing email accounts, find the email address required then click change. Find the outgoing mail server entry and change it to smtp.orange.fr and then go to More Settings and make sure that the box next to My Outgoing Server (smtp) requires authentication is unticked. Click OK and then Finish.

Outlook Express is Tools, Accounts, Mail, highlight the required account and click Properties. Click Servers and you will see the two settings that need changing on this page.

Don’t know about Eudora or Thunderbird specifically but from experience most people who are using these clients know their way around them.

Hope this helps you.  I’m passing on the knowledge I had to aquire when I came here in January 2012.

2 thoughts on “Outlook, Outlook Express, etc. email not working in France

  1. beton

    I really appreciate this post. I’ve been looking everywhere for this! Thank goodness I found it on Bing. You’ve made my day! Thanks again!

    Reply

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