Connect a Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com account to Distro

You can send campaigns from a Microsoft 365 work or school mailbox, or from a personal Outlook.com account (Hotmail and Live addresses too). You connect it from Outreach → Settings → Sending accounts. Microsoft handles the sign-in; Distro never sees your Microsoft password.

Connect it

1. Open Outreach, click Settings, and stay on the Sending accounts tab.
2. Click Add sender, enter the Name recipients should see and the Email address you send from, then click Save.
3. Under Email services, click Enable next to Microsoft 365 / Outlook.
4. Sign in with the Microsoft account that owns the address and accept the permissions.
5. You come back to Sending accounts. The sender shows Active, and the account appears under Connected accounts as Microsoft 365 or Outlook.com.

What Distro can do with your mailbox

Distro asks Microsoft for these permissions, all for your own mailbox only:

Distro doesn't ask for access to other people's mailboxes, shared mailboxes or your organization's directory.

Sending from an alias

Distro lists the aliases that belong to the mailbox you connected (for example sales@yourcompany.com on maya@yourcompany.com). To use one, click Add sender and enter it.

• The alias must already belong to the mailbox. Distro can't send as a different person's mailbox or a shared mailbox.
• Your organization may need to turn on sending from aliases. In Microsoft 365 this is an organization setting that only an administrator can change, and Distro can't change it for you. If it's off, Microsoft sends the email from the main address instead of the alias.
• Distro checks every email. If Microsoft replaced the alias with the main address, Distro stops using that alias, pauses campaigns that send from it, and shows Microsoft sent from … instead of this alias on the sender. Once your admin has turned alias sending on, open the sender and click Check again.

Personal Outlook.com accounts usually have no aliases Distro can list; they send from the account's own address.

Sending limits

Microsoft limits how much one mailbox can send, and new or personal accounts get less. Distro spaces each Microsoft mailbox's emails across all campaigns and holds anything over its daily allowance until the next day (1,000 a day for Microsoft 365, 150 a day for Outlook.com). Your campaign's own daily limit still applies. See Sending limits.

If it doesn't connect

• "Ask your admin to approve" or "Need admin approval": your organization only lets approved apps access mail. Ask your Microsoft 365 administrator to allow Distro.
• "This Microsoft account doesn't have a mailbox Distro can use": the account has no Outlook / Exchange Online mailbox (for example an account without an email licence). Use an account with email.
• "Already connected to another Distro account": each mailbox can be connected to one Distro account at a time.

Disconnect

Under Connected accounts, open the account's ⋮ menu and click Disconnect. Its senders stop sending and Distro deletes its stored access. You can also remove Distro's access from your Microsoft account's app permissions page.