Outlook (2): Add a QQ email account to Outlook

I spent a whole day struggling with Microsoft Outlook --- I got an error that had never happened before, so I have this article (1). The second article is a derivative of the first one.

Outlook (1): Something went wrong 2400 in Outlook
Outlook (2): Add a QQ email account to Outlook -- this article

A - Introduction

This article discusses how to add a QQ email to the Outlook desktop client. The major difficulty is handling the "two-factor authentication" issue.

Contents of the article:

A - Introduction
B - Add an email account to Outlook
C - Outlook won't accept my password
D - Get QQ app Password and setup the email account to Outlook

B - Add an email account to Outlook

Select File > Add Account.

or Select File > Account Settings > New

Type in Email Address > Connect

Type in Email Password > Connect

If this is a Microsoft email, it will be successful by Microsoft Exchange Server, while for the third-party email, it should also be auto-complete by IMAP or POP3 protocol. However, we got a window to ask for credentials again,

Click OK; it will go back to the same position --- there must be something wrong. When we Cancel, we get this.

C - Outlook won't accept my password [ref]

Outlook won't accept my password, and I know I am using the correct password for my email account. In this case, I might have an email account that requires additional security. Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud, Outlook.com, and AOL accounts all use two-factor authentication to help verify that you're the person trying to access your email account. This is true for QQ email, where besides the email password, there is a QQ account password, called Independent Password, that might be used for secondary or additional security.

At this point, for a third-party email to add the email account to Outlook, depending on its provider that one might need an app password, also known as an application password. This is a different password than the regular email account password and also different from, in QQ case, an independent password.

One way you'll know you need an app password is if you see the following message: 2-factor authentication is set up for your account. Please sign in using your application password. In our case, we just cannot log in with a box to ask for your password repeatedly.

The steps to obtain an app password are different for each email provider, such as

In the next section, we will demo how we get the app password for QQ email.

D - Get QQ app Password and setup the email account to Outlook

Click your user ID on the top right corner:

Click Settings

Under the Normal Tab, Click Generate Authorization Code:

In the opened window, get the code:

Go back to Outlook, redo the Add an email account to Outlook process, till the IMAP Account Settings, type in the code as Password > Connect

Successful, Click done.

You have the newly added QQ email in the email list:

References: