Add AOL email account to Windows Live Mail

As one of the most popular email providers in the world, AOL Mail is one of the webmail services whose setup is nearly completely automatic in Windows Live Mail 2012: just supply the basic account information, and the program takes care of everything else. To add your AOL email account and complete the setup literally takes less than 2 minutes! Your email address will be added as an IMAP account: you'll have access to all your "live" AOL folders, and you don't have to worry about leaving copies of messages on the server.

Tip: if you don't yet have your own @aol.com / @aol.co.uk email address, you can sign up for free, and don't need to use AOL as internet provider! Check out our "Create AOL Email Account" tutorial to get started.

Email account settings for AOL Mail (Manual Setup)

You can setup your AOL email account manually in Windows Live Mail, by using the settings below: note that (see next section) AOL is one of the webmail providers whose email addresses can be automatically added, without any need for manual configuration! But if you want your account setup as POP3 (as opposed to IMAP), you must add AOL manually. For more info and explanations, see our "AOL Mail Server Settings" tutorial (separate website).

Here are the AOL account settings for outgoing mail (SMTP) - emails you send:

Setup AOL email address in Windows Live Mail

If the "Add email account" dialog isn't open when you launch Windows Live Mail (this only happens the first time), click on the Accounts tab in the Ribbon and click on the "New email account" button (green plus sign), as shown below:

Tip: for future reference, you can also setup new email addresses with a click on the File button (top left), then choosing Options and "Accounts" on the right:  When that dialog opens, just click on the "Add" button.

Start by entering your full AOL email address in the first field, and double-check for typos. Then, enter your account password (note that it is case-sensitive: uppercase and lowercase letters are considered different characters!) If "Remember this password" checkbox is checked, you won't have to supply your credentials whenever Windows Live Mail tries to send or receive messages for your AOL account (only enable this option on a computer you trust).

Type your display name in the last text box: this is the name your recipients will see when you email them from Windows Live Mail, with your AOL email address.

Tip: when you check your AOL messages from a web browser, any message you send from there will use the name you entered when you first setup that email account. Make sure that they match: inside mail.aol.com, click on the Options button (top right), and choose "Account Info" to update your profile.

Make AOL the default "send from" account

If you check the "Make this my default email account" checkbox, messages you send from Windows Live Mail will automatically use your AOL address as sender. (Careful that Windows Live Mail also chooses the From email address based on which folder is currently selected - see the "Change Default Account" tutorial for more information.)

Complete the account setup

Click on Next, and then click on the Finish button: your AOL account is now completely setup, and messages and folders will start downloading. To give your account a more meaningful label, right-click on it inside the left pane and choose "Properties": type a new name and hit Enter.

To send a message from your AOL email address at any point, make sure that it is selected in the "From" dropdown menu: whatever shows in that dropdown will be used as sender.