If you are using a Yahoo, AOL, CompuServe, AT&T and other ISP accounts hosted by Yahoo and are having problems signing when you use Outlook desktop software, this is for you:
If you are unable to set up an Yahoo or AOL account in Outlook desktop, receiving an error that your username or password is wrong, you need to use an app password.
If the account is already configured in Outlook, you'll see this error message in the Send / Receive Progress dialog:
Task 'Synchronizing subscribed folders for ***@***.com.' reported error (0x800CCC0E) : 'Outlook cannot synchronize subscribed folders for ***@***.com. Error: Cannot connect to the server. If you continue to receive this message, contact your server administrator or Internet service provider (ISP).'
You'll see this message when you add a new account:
Something went wrong
We couldn't log on to the incoming (IMAP) server. Please check your email address and password and try again.
Unlike Gmail, iCloud and Outlook.com, you do not need to enable 2-step authentication or the secret key feature to use an app password.
To generate an app password to use in place of your "real" password:
- Log into your account security settings in Yahoo or AOL and click on Manage app passwords.
- Select your app from the list and click Generate. (Choosing the app is to make it easier to delete (revoke) a specific password if you need to later. You can use the app password in any application.)
- Copy the password and paste it into Outlook’s password dialog. If you type it in, don’t include the spaces, they just make the password easier to read.
To change the password in Outlook 2016 and newer, use the File > Account Settings > Server settings menu.
Use Ctrl+V to paste the password in the password field then click Next.
In older versions of Outlook, you can change the password in Account Settings. Go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Double click on the account and change the password.
I recommend copying and pasting the password into OneNote, Outlook Notes, or Notepad (or wherever you save things) so you have a copy if you need it with another mail client. The app password is valid until you revoke it.
Yahoo Security settings page
Articles explaining the change:
Ways to securely access Yahoo Mail
Ways to securely access AOL Mail
AT&T Yahoo accounts
For AT&T email accounts hosted at Yahoo, you need to log into your AT&T profile to create the app password.
- Select the email account that you want to get a secure mail key for. (You’ll find a drop-down menu at the top if you have multiple accounts.)
- Go to Profile > Sign-in info.
- Scroll to Secure mail key and select Manage secure mail key.
- If you have more than one email address, select the one you want to use.
- Select Add secure mail key.
- Enter a nickname for the secure mail key to make it easier to recognize.
- Select Create secure mail key.
- Select Copy secure mail key to clipboard.
- Paste it into the password field in outlook.
Thanks so much for sharing your solution! Question: I have 3 AOL accounts that I access via Outlook on 2 laptops. I generated app passwords for Outlook on laptop 1 and then, copied/pasted those app passwords into Outlook on laptop 2 and got a "something went wrong" message indicating that it didn't work. Do we need to generate more app passwords for each laptop?
You can try using the same app password on each and see if it works. Some app passwords are single use, others can be reused. I haven't tested it with AOL & Yahoo to verify if theirs are single use.
Is there a way to get this to work when setting up an aol email in outlook as a pop account?
It should work just the same - you need ot use manual setup f the account and use the app password instead of your real password.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!! Been so frustrated the past month trying to get my Yahoo accounts to work on Outlook ! So happy to come across this article and solution.
You are amazing! Thank you for sharing this. The Yahoo, ATT and AOL providers do not share this type of information to the general populous or even email these instructions to their current subscriber base. I never got anything. Glad I researched and found your site. Keep up the good work. This helps a lot of people who use Outlook as their default email application.
literally spent hours looking for ways to fix this and this finally worked. just bought a surface pro and it wouldn't connect with my aol.
I ran into this same issue last night. I called AOL tech support and the agent did a remote support logon to my pc and did these steps for me. I was having issues syncing my aol email to both Outlook for Office 365 and the Mail app on Windows 10. All is working well now. If you’re going to do this, it’s best to first delete your account, the re-add, then follow the steps Diane just took us through.
Thank so much for providing the 'real' solution! I have been chasing this problem on and off for weeks. It didn't help that outlook was telling me it was an issue of a blocked port, though perhaps that is how it presented to outlook.
Diane,
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!! I've been losing my mind over this! It's too funny that neither AOL or Microsoft help pages have anything useful on this error. I'm so glad I came across this article. I use Outlook to sync with my AOL account, and as of yesterday (3/4/21), Outlook just stopped sync'ing, with no explanation, other than that useless, cryptic "error (0x800CCC0E)". I got into AOL Settings as you suggested, generated a password for Outlook Desktop, pasted it into the Outlook server settings, and it worked like a charm! Thank you again!