[zsheeh107]

I'm having trouble syncing my Mac Mail with the email account I use at the school I teach at. I've asked for help from the tech coordinator but she refuses to help claiming the system cannot process it (but I really think it's because the district is giving her the shaft pay wise and she doesn't want to do more than she's getting paid for... which is pretty fair).

Any way. I got it to sync with my iPhone just fine, but not Mac Mail.

What I know:
My username / email address
My password
The domain name (which the iPhone has you enter, but Mail doesn't...?)
The Outlook Web Access address used to view mail online
and finally the server name listed under my work desktop's Outlook settings

I cannot seem to find anywhere the incoming and outgoing mail servers... is this as simple as "mail.school.k12.xx.us"?

Also Mail asks for the Outlook Web Access server. Is this the same as the address I use to log on to O. Web Access or is it something else?

Sorry for all the questions. I am just super frustrated that I cannot get help or figure this out. I would think if I can get my phone to sync that I could get the laptop too.

Nothing I have tried works. So if anyone can give me a step by step or at least some direction... that would be great!

[turtle777]

You are not doing anything wrong, Apple Mail in OS X 10.5 (a.k.a. Leopard) does NOT support Outlook accounts.

Once Apple's new OS Snow Leopard comes out, it will be fully MS Outlook ready.
Price will be pretty cheap for Snow Leopard, only $29 for upgrade from Leopard, and will be released sometime this fall.

-t

[zsheeh107]

Thank you! I feel like an idiot for not figuring that out on my own!

[turtle777]

Actually, I should have said MS Exchange, since that's the server that's not supported. Outlook is just the email client.

So to be correct: Snow Leopard's Mail will support MS Exchange servers.

-t

[besson3c]

turtle: that's not right. She said she has OWA (Outlook Web Access), Mail does work with OWA, it just doesn't have native MAPI support.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

turtle: that's not right. She said she has OWA (Outlook Web Access), Mail does work with OWA, it just doesn't have native MAPI support.

Ok, I'm not sure what that means.

I thought Web Access is just a web client, but not a protocol.

-t

[zsheeh107]

So how do I get it to work then? What am I missing? Every possible way I try to enter the information it says error or timed out.

[besson3c]

Before I respond, just a caveat so that I don't have to write "AFAIK" after ever sentence: I'm by no means an Exchange guy, but I'm acquainted with Exchange and have a thorough understanding of messaging systems in general... I'm pretty sure about everything I'm about to write though...

turtle: OWA is a feature of Exchange by which access to its mail store is provided via the web. Information to this server is facilitated by supporting standalone mail clients via WebDAV. When you use OS X Mail or Entourage to access your Exchange account, it simply logs in to OWA and parses the information sent by the web server, perhaps with using something like JSON.

The problem with this is that it does not provide full Exchange capability for doing stuff like reserving rooms and some other stuff. In order to do this you need a client that supports MAPI. Microsoft provides this via something they license called ActiveSync. The Blackberry communicates with the Exchange server via ActiveSync AFAIK, and I believe the iPhone does too. This capability will be added to Snow Leopard too.

Where I'm not quite clear is how OWA and IMAP work together. I'm not sure whether both are required to be enabled, but I suspect that this is the case since it would be extremely clunky for a mail client to check for mail by logging into OWA and parsing that info. IMAP support is a non-default Exchange configuration which is used to provide basic access to non-MAPI clients and clients with no Exchange/OWA support whatsoever. However, I suspect that OWA is intended to serve as an extension for IMAP access to do stuff like access the global address list, look at free/busy time, etc. in terms of what some clients do to mimic full Exchange support (i.e. OS X Mail and Entourage).

Original poster, you are going to have to give this up. Chances are if your admins are unwilling to support you they have disabled IMAP. Your best bet will be to twist their arm to enable IMAP, perhaps come up with a compromise to only allow IMAP over a VPN or something like that. If you suspect that IMAP is enabled, try telneting to the server to see if it responds:

telnet <servername> 993 (secure port)
telnet <servername> 143 (insecure port)

if either work, use this as your mail server, and enter the OWA login page as your OWA server. Without IMAP enabled though, you're probably SOL. It's going to be pretty much impossible to poke holes through what your admins have setup by guessing though, and it will probably piss them off. Like I said, if they won't support you they probably do not have IMAP enabled.