Scenario: While connected to the internal network, Outlook 2011 connects to the Exchange server without issues. When you disconnect from the network and take it home, it will continue to work fine. However, when you bring it back and connect to the internal network, Outlook will automatically update the Exchange Server address to the internal server address. Outlook works fine on the internal network with this setting; the problem arises when you are out of the office. Since Outlook 2011 has the internal address instead of the public address, it no longer works out of the office.
Is there a way to prevent Outlook from automatically changing the address to the internal server?
Office for Mac 2011 does not handle auto-discover "correctly". Microsoft Windows-based Office installs use auto-discover to determine the correct settings for configuring Outlook when you first configure the account.
Outlook 2011 for Mac uses it continually. This causes your settings to be adjusted to internal-only settings when working onsite, after the account has already been configured appropriately for internal & external access.
This solution comes from CooGuru in our OutlookForums
To disable Outlook 2011 from checking autodiscover after is it setup do this:
- Open Outlook if not running
- Launch the AppleScript Editor and run the following script, changing NamOfAccount to match the actual name of the account listed in Outlook's account settings page.
tell application "Microsoft Outlook" set background autodiscover of exchange account "NameOfAccount" to false end tell
To disable it for multiple Exchange accounts, use
tell application “Microsoft Outlook” set background autodiscover of every Exchange account to false end tell
To re-enable autodiscover, change false to true and re-run the script.
Have tried both of the options but receive Symtax errors.
Throws errors with the 'Microsoft Office'
Running Office for Mac 2016
AFAIK, it does not work with 2016, only 2011.
Is your problem the same as described in the article, or a different issue with autodiscover?
Thanks a lot. You save me!
Also works for Outlook 15
i ran the above script and received the following error: error "Microsoft Outlook got an error: Can’t set exchange account "Name of Account" to false." number -10006 from exchange account "Name of Account"
use the second option:
tell application “Microsoft Outlook”
set background autodiscover of every Exchange account to false
end tell