Mail settings - pop3 / smtp - Windows10 vs Windows11 - Outlook (classic)
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The last few days have been transferring content of one PC (Windows10) to another PC (Windows11).
Most of the mail accounts in Outlook - those connecting to the servers at Mythic Beasts - transferred fine.
... however those with plus.com addresses would not work in Windows11.
The Plusnet help page https://www.plus.net/help/email-guides/how-to-set-up-plusnet-email/ says:
POP
Incoming server mail.plus.net
Incoming port 995
Outgoing server relay.plus.net
Outgoing port 587 (recommended) or 25
STARTTLS Yes
... I tried that. Wouldn't work, for any of the three plus.com addresses (which btw have all now been migrated to Greenby).
So I looked at the set-ups on the Windows10 PC.
The set-ups (which are currently *working* on that PC) are as follows:
POP
Incoming server mail.plus.net
Incoming port 110
Outgoing server relay.plus.net
Outgoing port 25
… no encryption.
(this one is working for one of the three plus.com accounts on the Windows10 PC).
POP
Incoming server pop3.plus.net
Incoming port 110
Outgoing server smtp.plus.net
Outgoing port 25
… no encryption.
(this one is working for the other two plus.com accounts on the Windows10 PC).
I am - somewhat - mystified. I can remember that setting up the plus.com mail accounts in Outlook for the Windows10 PC took an age, originally (some years back) because it wouldn't accept anything with encryption. However I don't specifically recall the 'pop3.plus.net' or 'smtp.plus.net' (only mail.plus.net and relay.plus.net which iirc had always been the settings from way back when).
... however Outlook does seem to have a habit of changing settings for no particular reason so maybe it had overwritten whatever I had put in originally.
It still doesn't explain, though, how the exact working settings in Windows10, simply do not work in Windows11.
Meanwhile - in the process of trying to set up the three plus.com accounts on the Windows11 PC - outlook regularly tried to use mail.enmail.co (associated with greenby afaik) for both incoming and outgoing server on the plus.com accounts, so it was clearly getting that address from *somewhere*, even though it didn't work.
Any insights on what combination of servers, ports and encryption settings might actually *work* on Windows 11 for plus.com mail accounts, would be very much appreciated 
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@jab1 wrote:
... does Outlook (any version) store settings in a profile which can be copied to a new machine?
Sorry for the late reply, been occupied with much else the last couple of days, only been here fleetingly.
Yes, there is indeed a 'profile' as I discovered from https://www.zubairalexander.com/blog/how-to-export-and-import-outlook-account-settings/ How to Export and Import Outlook Account Settings (brilliant page). Years back (while the PHC site was being built) we had no less than six (!) hard drives fail in the space of a single year (combination of laptops and PCs) and my eldest son gradually found ways to retain and transfer mail accounts and inbox rules, by use of the Registry.
... so I'd figured this was probably what I needed, so as to get these items from the w10 PC to the w11 PC, and went looking for detailed instructions, hence the Zubair page linked above.
Also aware, dually, that messing with the Registry can be somewhat risky, and having already transferred to the w11 PC approx 100K current files as well as four .pst files containing e-mail from 2001 to present day, didn't want to risk stuffing things up so enlisted the help of "Copilot" (Microsoft AI afaik) for the registry sequence.
Initially I referred him/her (how does one term an AI? "it" doesn't seem quite right, so CP, I guess, ongoing, for simplicity) to the Zubair page, with specific relevance to the name of the Outlook profile needing to be the same on both PCs.
Then I asked CP to guide me through setting up a System Restore Point (so if things got stuffed up there would be a way of restoring the PC to how things were before we started).
Then we started the process ... and if anyone else follows this process, please FIRST see the final caveat (re name-of-user [not just name-of-profile]) highlighted in orange, further down this post).
It was all relatively straightforward First we checked the name of the profile, on both PCs - both said "Outlook". I queried whether this was "New Outlook" or "Outlook Classic" (the former was pre-installed on the W11 PC, the latter I had had to download separately from MS) and CP informed me that "the registry‑based profile transfer ONLY applies to Outlook Classic". S/he also said "Go to: Control Panel → Mail → Show Profiles - The profile name “Outlook” is the default name used by Outlook Classic, not the new Outlook."
... @jab1 I am well aware that the above paragraph is probably not of the slightest interest to you given that you don't touch Outlook with a bargepole lol but I've included it because it might be of interest to others reading this thread and CP did indeed give me a great deal of useful information along the way.
So I asked where to put the code
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\ProfilesAnd CP replied:
Where to put the registry path
You will paste the path into the address bar at the top of Registry Editor on the Windows 10 PC.
On the Windows 10 PC:
1. Press Start
2. Type regedit
3. Open Registry Editor
You will now see a window with two main parts:
• A tree of folders on the left
• A blank area on the right
• And at the very top, a thin white bar — this is the address bar
The address bar didn't seem to have any facility to allow the input of the requisite code, so CP provided a different way forward.
Manually expand the folders in the left hand tree.
You don’t need the address bar at all — we can get there by clicking the little arrows.
On the Windows 10 PC:
1. In the left panel, find HKEY_CURRENT_USER (you may need to scroll a little)
2. Click the little arrow to the left of it to expand it (not double click — just click the arrow)
3. Now expand these folders in order:
• Software
• Microsoft
• Office
• 16.0
• Outlook
• Profiles
Export instructions followed:
Under Profiles, you will see a folder named Outlook
That’s the folder we need to export.
Export the Outlook profile from the Windows 10 registry.
You’re still on the Windows 10 PC for this step.
1. In the left panel, right click the folder named Outlook under Profiles
2. Choose Export
3. When it asks where to save, choose Desktop (easy to find)
4. Name the file:
OutlookProfile-W10.reg
5. Click Save
Next set of CP instructions:
That’s it — you’ve now captured the entire Outlook Classic profile from the Windows 10 machine.
Our next job is simply to get that file onto the Windows 11 PC.
Since your mouse/keyboard don’t cross between machines, the simplest and cleanest method is:
On the Windows 10 PC:
1. Open File Explorer
2. Open your OneDrive personal folder
3. Drag OutlookProfile W10.reg from the Desktop into that folder
That’s it — the file will sync automatically.
... followed by:
Then, on the Windows 11 PC:
4. Open File Explorer
5. Open your w11 OneDrive personal folder
6. Confirm that OutlookProfile W10.reg appears there.
... at which point I asked:
... okay - before I do this, am aware that the .reg file on the w10 pc that I moved (dragged) to one drive is no longer located in the folder where I had created it. ... just wish to confirm that moving (dragging) the exported registry/outlook/profile file, to one drive, is not in any way going to affect the ongoing use of the registry/outlook/profile file by the w10 outlook program (?)
... to which CP replied:
Moving the exported .reg file will NOT affect Outlook on the Windows 10 PC
Here’s why:
The registry file you exported is just a copy
When you right clicked Profiles → Outlook → Export, Windows created a separate .reg file on your Desktop.
That file is:
• not linked to the live registry
• not used by Outlook
• not referenced by Windows
• not “active” in any way
It’s literally just a snapshot — like a photocopy.
Dragging it to OneDrive does NOT move anything inside the registry
You’re only moving the copy, not the actual registry data.
Nothing you do with the exported file can affect w10 Outlook unless you double click it to import it — which must NOT be done on the Windows 10 PC.
... so, to recap:
Then, on the Windows 11 PC:
4. Open File Explorer
5. Open your w11 OneDrive personal folder
6. Confirm that OutlookProfile W10.reg appears there.
... next set of CP instructions:
Import the Windows 10 Outlook profile into Outlook Classic on the Windows 11 PC.
This step is done on the Windows 11 PC, and it’s very simple.
1. Open File Explorer
2. Go to w11 OneDrive personal folder.
3. Find the file: OutlookProfile W10.reg
4. Double click it
5. Windows will ask: “Are you sure you want to continue?” Click Yes
6. It will then say: “The keys and values have been successfully added to the registry.” Click OK
That’s it — the profile is now imported.
... followed by:
Nothing will change visually yet — Outlook hasn’t read the new profile until you restart it.
… and this is where we hit the roadblock. w11 Outlook Classic wouldn't open.
This was the error message:
Cannot start microsoft outlook. cannot open the outlook window. the set of folders cannot be opened. the path specified for the file C:\Users\name-of-w10-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\personal-email@gmail.ost is not valid.
... because:
(filepath C:\Users\name-of-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook) needs to be exactly the same on both PCs.
In W11, Outlook was not accessible initially *until* personal-email@gmail was signed in. At which point W11 Outlook Classic created an .ost file at C:\Users\name-of-w11-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook.
... so when the settings changed - when the .reg file was imported - the .ost file at C:\Users\name-of-w10-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\personal-email@gmail.ost could not be located on the w11 PC. That gmail address being the primary one that use of Outlook365 was tied to. So Outlook refused to open.
CP disagreed that this could be the problem and said the registry file must be corrupted. S/he kept proposing what s/he thought might be ways of causing Outlook to open - two more hours and getting precisely nowhere - at which point I disengaged (politely).
After which I used System Restore and - blissfully - everything returned to how it had been before this experiment 😐 Twenty minutes, System Restore took, "repairing the registry", it said. But eventually everything back how it was initially and 25 years of e-mails intact.
... at which point it occurred to me that if I could create a (mock) folder tree in Users (in w10 PC) with the filepath C:\Users\name-of-w11-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\, and put a copy of the personal-email@gmail.ost file in that folder, I could then nominate that filepath for the .ost file for the personal-email@gmail account.
I got as far as building the mock 'folder tree' (in w10 PC), ie Users containing folder name-of-w11-user containing folder AppData containing folder Local containing folder Microsoft containing folder Outlook containing the .ost file, but at that stage I couldn't figure out (in w10 Outlook Classic) how to nominate a different .ost file location for that personal-email@gmail account. Though I did (before creating the tree) get as far as creating a System Restore Point for the w10 PC just in case switching the folder path for the central gmail account might stop Outlook w10 working 😕
I have since discovered (for all the mail accounts except gmail) that Start - Control Panel - small icons - Mail (Microsoft Outlook) - E-mail accounts - Email tab - click 'change folder' bottom left - next screen select New Outlook data file - and then (for me) disregard the offered Windows - Users - my name - documents - outlook files options (that MS Outlook presents), and instead click (on the left) Windows (C:) - (NAME) - aaa mail folders pst - and select from the three already-created .pst files for recent-years mail (.pst files transferred over with the other 100K files before all this Outlook stuff was started) I could divert the mail traffic into the previously-set-up intended storage-locations, and disregard the Outlook 'extras' just created.
With regard to the central gmail account, all that would have been required (w10 PC) was to follow the sequence Start - Control Panel - small icons - Mail (Microsoft Outlook) - E-mail accounts - Email tab - click 'change folder' bottom left - next screen select New Outlook data file and again disregard the MS Outlook options then follow the path from Windows (C:) to C:\Users\name-of-w11-user\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Outlook\personal-email@gmail.ost and select that file.
If Outlook w10 continued to work with the revised filepath for the central gmail account, I would have been relatively confident in re-exporting the Registry data and trying again
Paradoxically, the only way/route by which I discovered how to change the selection of .pst files was after finally giving up on the profile-transfer option and deciding to brave the long process of transferring 36 more mail accounts from w10 PC to w11 PC one by one. This took a while - especially as Outlook kept inventing servers and ports - but eventually all the Mythic Beasts addresses were re-created. However for more than half of the accounts, Outlook had decided to create a new (separate) .pst file for each account - so I then had to figure out how to cause those factors to be changed, hence the above discovery.
Meanwhile - eventually - it had occurred to me that if I could figure out how to re-name the User on the w10 PC to be identical to the User on the w11 PC (folder-name between Users and AppData) then the Registry export might well work fine, without any need of a mock-tree folder path. However I'm guessing that it's not just a question of re-naming that folder but instead of making the change at some very much deeper level (anything created on the w10 PC, be it Word docs or pdfs or whatever else has always had the author name 'name-of-w10-user') so maybe another Registry-type setting, who knows.
Maybe at some stage - next PC move, hopefully several more years down the track! - I will try the export route again, using what's been learned along the way. For now, just grateful that Outlook is up-and-running on the w11 PC, and life is returning to something like normal.
However I now need to figure out the plus.com settings as per the original post here, so as to get the last three mail accounts in place.
Thanks for all the replies so far - hopefully *something* will be found to work, sooner or later. Any insights from @plusnettony on the plus.com server/port/encryption settings would also be appreciated Whenever - no rush.
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@jab1 wrote:
What a palaver, @Penny 😁.
Indeed 😁
Windows 11 is a palaver from start to finish.
Never understood before why people disliked it so much.
Though it's becoming gradually more usable as various elements are refined back to Windows 10 -type settings.
I guess I could always write a book on "Conversations with CoPilot" 
Long road ahead, still, likely.
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