How to connect Microsoft Outlook with Lotus Notes e-mail servers (290834)

SUMMARY

This article discusses a supported method for connecting Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a Lotus Notes e-mail server.

You cannot connect to a Lotus Notes Mail mailbox using Microsoft Outlook with a MAPI profile. Sometimes you can connect, but when you try to open any message, you may receive the following error message:

Unable to open item. And extended error occurred unknown to mapi.

Microsoft has developed a supported method for connecting to a Lotus Notes e-mail server with Microsoft Outlook.

MORE INFORMATION

The MAPI driver that is provided by Lotus Notes Mail is not a full implementation of the MAPI specification. Outlook cannot use the Lotus Notes Mail driver as an information store provider.

To resolve this issue, Microsoft has developed an add-in for Microsoft Outlook 2002 and Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 for connection with IBM Lotus Notes release 5.x or 6.x servers. The Microsoft Office Outlook Connector for IBM Lotus Domino can be downloaded from the following Microsoft Web site:

Outlook 2003/2002 Add-in: Notes Connector

If your e-mail server can provide e-mail client connectivity using the HTTP, IMAP4 or POP3 protocols, you can use Outlook to download your e-mail.

Tested drivers that are not supported with Microsoft Outlook include the following:

Lotus Notes Mail
Netscape SMTP driver (using the Internet Mail driver provided with Outlook, you can connect to Netscape and other SMTP/POP3 servers).

Drivers not listed are untested as of March 13, 2001.

The third-party products discussed here are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.