is this an office 365 or free account (they are different sometimes) What version of Thunderbird are you using (check help menu > about or the troubleshootong information)

There is work being done in the release versions to enable native exchange using EWS, so make sure you select IMAP as the connection type in the setup so you do not get involved with the experimental stuff. Thunderbird will most likely detect EWS and it is not really appropriate for most home users as Exchange is a more business focused approach. Valid but the features are a little different.

Thankyou for you fast reply! I just installed Thunderbird today with Version 145.0 (64-bit). I am using a free personal version of outlook that is decades old. When creating the email connection account I have only been entering in my email address and password. No other fields are exposed. If however I go to “Manual Configure” I will then be able to set IMAP which it defaults to. However there is an Error in the Host Name field. It shows. “ .outlook.com” I have no idea what the server address should be or what other fields should be set to. I have tried server addresses I have seen when googling around. But they have not worked.

I was able to finally connect Thunderbird to my personal free outlook email account by using the server settings from MS using the following link. https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/pop-imap-and-smtp-settings-for-outlook-com-d088b986-291d-42b8-9564-9c414e2aa040 The Thunderbird New Account setup wizard did not work. I had to manually configure all settings and close/restart the Thunderbird app. It would not connect until I finally went back to the email list view, and suddenly it started to connect, after multiple close/restart of the app. The setup wizard worked easily and beautifully setting up both iCloud (using app-specific password) and Yahoo email. Thank you for your help.

I believe that you have connected via IMAP. When I asked CoPilot if I could connect to my Microsoft 365 Family Plan outlook.com email account, it replied:

💡 What Microsoft says about EWS and Outlook.com Microsoft has formally announced that Exchange Web Services (EWS) is being deprecated and will be fully disabled in Exchange Online (which includes all Outlook.com accounts) in October 2026.

Key points from Microsoft’s announcement:

EWS has received no new features since 2018.

Microsoft is removing EWS dependencies from all Microsoft products, including Outlook itself.

The deprecation applies to all Microsoft accounts, not just business tenants.

The disablement date is October 2026.

Microsoft is pushing all developers and apps to use Microsoft Graph instead.

This means:

✔ Your Microsoft 365 Family plan does not grant EWS access. ✔ Outlook.com mailboxes (personal Microsoft accounts) are not supported for EWS going forward. ✔ Even if EWS still works today for some legacy scenarios, it is being actively phased out.

Although they say "October 2026" I think they are already shutting off EWS access for recent attempts to connect. Yet another reason I'm looking forward to thundermail.