Jun

Connecting an iPhone 4 to Exchange

By Q

Yes, it’s June 24, and the new iPhones have been hitting the streets, and a number of people have been updating their previous iPhone models to the iPhone OS 4 (IOS4). As we’ve done for the previous versions, here are instructions for connecting your iPhone 4 to an Exchange server.

From the Home screen (or whichever screen you’ve moved the icon to), click the Settings icon.
In the Settings screen, click Mail, Contacts, Calendars
Click Add Account
Click Microsoft Exchange
Enter the information in the account screen:
- Enter your e-mail address *exactly* as the default account is set (for example, if your outbound e-mail address is Jonathan.Dough@smallbizco.net, enter it exactly that way – do not enter jonathan.dough@smallbizco.net).
- Enter your internal domain name (if needed)
- Enter your account name (this is the name used to log into your computer, it may or may not match your e-mail address)
- Enter your account password
- Enter a description for the account (Exchange will be the name if you do not put anything into the description field
Once you have verified that the information entered is correct, click Next.
You may see a warning that your server identity cannot be identified. This is expected if the server is Exchange 2003 or if the Autodiscover record for the server has not been set up properly. If you see this message, click Continue.
If you did get the previous message that the phone could not verify the identity of the server, you will need to enter the name of the server. This will be the same address you enter to get to Outlook Web Access (i.e., if you use https://remote.smallbizco.net/owa as the address for your Outlook Web Access server, then enter remote.smallbizco.net in the Server field).
You may receive a second warning that the server identity cannot be verified. This will be the case if your Exchange server has an invalid or untrusted SSL certificate. The iPhone can continue to communicate with the server using this certificate, and that communication is still secured. If this is the first, or second, time you get this warning, click Continue.
If you receive a message that the Exchange account cannot be verified, click OK and make sure you have entered the account information correctly. This error will most often appear if a password has not been entered correctly or if the Domain information is incorrect.
Once the account has been validated, select which Exchange features you wish to synchronize with your phone, then click Save.
After creating the account, you can go back into the account settings to change the items you wish to synchronize, or to modify other synchronization options.

At this point, your iPhone will start to synchronize information with your Exchange account. Depending on the data connection speed of the iPhone and your server, along with how much data you have in your mailbox to synchronize, this process may take some time.

Categories : Exchange, How To, iPhone

32 Comments

Leif Hurst
September 6th, 2010 at 3:07 pm

Thanks so much for this… I just installed exchange 2010 and didn’t realize that the server name in exchange setup on the iphone was the same name we used to connect to OWA (which I hadn’t setup yet as the ports to be open for http and https were still not enabled on the firewall).

Great blog… look forward to reading some more

Alpesh
September 28th, 2010 at 4:30 am

Thank you very much. It was easy to follow the screenshots and guide end user with the screenshots.

Cheers.

Benedict Goodall
January 14th, 2011 at 5:38 pm

It appears to work – somthing our IT department could not achive!

I just need to learn how to turn of the `Autolock` password requirement which has now implemented itself… any thoughts?

Many thanks

Peter C
February 9th, 2011 at 12:36 pm

Thanks for the very clear instructions. I have a problem that my email set up seems to verfy fine with SSL on or off but syncronisiing does not start and when I go to mail I get the error message “the connection to the server failed”

remo
February 13th, 2011 at 12:26 pm

I just wanna ask, why it can’t verify my account though I put the correct server, username and password?

Seth
February 15th, 2011 at 4:08 pm

Very nice guide. Just one question: When my password expires in Active Directory / Exchange, I have had to manually go and change it on the iPhone. I’m sure there is something I’m missing. I made the move from Blackberry to iPhone. When I changed my password in exchange, the blackberry just kept on receiving mail.

Skipper
February 15th, 2011 at 10:36 pm

I have followed all of the steps given above and when I open Mail I see this error: “Cannot Get Mail. The connection to the server failed.” (Using Exchange 2003.)

Any ideas for troubleshooting? Thanks in advance!

Michelle
February 22nd, 2011 at 7:50 pm

GREAT instructions! Was extreamly easy to hook up my work email with my iphone

Q
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:35 pm

@Seth – The BlackBerry Enterprise Service uses a completely different communication technology than ActiveSync, and the BlackBerry configured to use BES doesn’t actually have your credential information stored on it. As to the password changes on the iPhone, that’s absolutely expected. The iPhone is connecting to your domain account using stored credentials, and when you change the domain password, you have to update the credentials stored on the iPhone for it to continue to access your account.

Q
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:38 pm

@Benedict – Exchange 2007 and later has a default setting requiring any ActiveSync based devices to have a lock code enabled in order for the device to communicate. This is a security measure that will almost guarantee that if the iPhone (or any other ActiveSync devices that supports this) is lost or stolen, you’ll be able to do a remote wipe of the device, ensuring that all sensitive information is removed. If the device is found in an unlocked state, the person with the device can remove the e-mail accounts from the configuration, keeping a remote wipe from being possible. While it is possible to set up a separate policy in Exchange to allow ActiveSync devices to connect without the locking password requirement, I don’t recommend it.

Q
February 22nd, 2011 at 8:40 pm

For those who have been having trouble getting the iPhone to connect (seeing the “connection to the server failed” message), a great resource to troubleshoot connectivity issues with ActiveSync is http://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com. Run through the ActiveSync connectivity test at that site, and if there is a problem on the ActiveSync setup on the server, the site will give you a good idea what the problem is. I have yet to find an ActiveSync device that will not connect with Exchange if the ActiveSync test completes successfully at that site.

iPhone 4: The Best?
March 12th, 2011 at 3:26 am

thanks this was alot of help now i got all my google contacts synced to my iphone 4.

tony G
March 15th, 2011 at 11:03 am

I have successfully setup my exchange account on the Iphone and it is synchronizing only the mail header. I cannot view the body of the mail or any attachement. I am sure there is a setting somewhere that i have missed.

Please help

Tony

Gilbert
March 15th, 2011 at 12:26 pm

My exchange account on the Iphone was working well for a while and suddenly I cannot view the body of the emails or any attachement. I can only see the header. When i try to read the content it is blank.

Rob Smith
March 15th, 2011 at 7:31 pm

Regarding Q’s response to a comment that reads “The iPhone is connecting to your domain account using stored credentials, and when you change the domain password, you have to update the credentials stored on the iPhone for it to continue to access your account.”…

Our company uses Radius to handle authentication from the outside to our Activesync services. We have a problem where iOS devices are being locked out from Radius because they keep retrying with an incorrect password. On a Windows Mobile device using Activesync, the device will respond with a password update prompt if it can’t connect but iOS doesn’t, and that causes the lockout. Does anybody know if there’s a way to require iOS to prompt for password instead of retrying if it fails?

Thanks

David Moore
March 16th, 2011 at 6:55 pm

@Benedict: The device lockout is a security measure that is controlled at the server level, not on the phone. As Q said, disabling this feature is not recommended and changing this setting is really a policy issue that is decided by the organization providing the email service.

That being said, my team has been getting a lot of requests lately from companies wanting to disable this feature, so we’ve written a quick article that walks you through how to turn off the device lock on the Exchange server: http://blog.indytechpro.com/2011/03/forced-password-lock-on-android-iphone-4-when-connected-to-exchange/

NecroMike
March 16th, 2011 at 8:33 pm

Great instructions! Worked like a charm, thanks! A further question however: my outgoing emails are showing up as coming from my Yahoo account (which I have set up as an alternate email account). How can I have my exchange account be the “default” outgoing account? Thanks again

Nina
April 13th, 2011 at 4:39 am

I was using gmail to access my email, after buying a Mac computer I set up exchange so I could sync the two. Which was a success. My only problem is now my display name when I send emails is not the correct name. From my Mac my name still shows up correctly, and it is the same email account. When I email from my phone the name is incorrect.

Any suggestions?

Juan Nicolas Gaviria
May 28th, 2011 at 12:31 pm

Thanks for the tip on step 8!

SeanyG
June 9th, 2011 at 9:12 am

Hiya,

I came to here via googleing my problem to try and find a resolve to the the issue discussed above.

Having tried all the suggestions but none of them working, I later found a solution that worked for me.

I am no techie so forgive me if I sound a bit basic but I will explain my problem:

My company upgraded it’s mobile phone contract and handsets to Apple IPhone 4′s and also purchased a couple of Apple IPad 2′s.

We have an office server-based Microsoft Exchanger Server that handles all our employee’s emails accounts.

We followed precise instructions on how to set up the IPhone 4′s and IPad 2′s to connect to Exchange so we could send and received emails on our devices. These instructions are exactly as described perfectly above, they are the correct instructions.

It still didn’t work. There has to something missing, something that Apple don’t tell you about.

We asked our expert independent PC IT consultant to come in and try to fix the problem. He saw that our Exchange on the server was on Service Pack 1 but needs to be on Service Pack 2 for it to work (which is correct by the way) so he upgraded it to Service Pack 2. It still didn’t work.

He checked all the settings for each email account on the server and they were all set up correctly to allow mobile communication.

He has an IPhone himself but not an IPhone 4, an IPhone 3GS so he deleted his own account on his phone and set up one of our email accounts on his 3GS IPhone and Bingo! It worked!

So, what is the difference between an IPhone 3GS and an IPhone 4?

I phoned the technical support line at Orange Business (our mobile phone contact supplier) and they said: “Ah we have come across this before, believe it or not Apple have made the new devices so that they cannot connect to an Exchange Server while WiFi is switched ON on the device. Switch your WiFi off so that the only connection is through your mobile network 3G card and try again”.

I switched WiFi OFF on the IPhone 4, checked my email setttings on the device and then clicked onto ‘Mail’ and waited…….it initially said the same thing “Cannot Connect to the server, Cannot Verify Account Information” but then after a few seconds it connected and all the emails came flooding through.

If you switch WiFi back ON on the device, it stops receiving emails again. Switch WiFi OFF and they will start coming through again.

Bizzarre or what! Why would Apple do this? If you have a POP3 email account all this is irrelevant because that just works. It’s specifically a problem with connectng to Exchange email accounts.

I did the same on the IPad 2′s and they now work with Exchange and receive emails fine while WiFi is switched OFF on the device.

It seems Apple want you to use a paid-for means of connecting to Exchange rather than piggy-backing on free WiFi or they want you to buy Mobile Me and are only interested in people with POP3 email accounts. But, most businesses use Exchange!

Is it an Apple vs Microsoft argument and therefore deliberate? Or is it just an oversight?

I don’t know why this works, it just does.

I intend to ring up Apple Support to ask them Why I can’t connect the IPad2 to Exchange when WiFi is switched on. If I get an answer I will update.

This worked for me, x5 Iphone’s and x2 IPads so I hope it works for you. I hope this is of help.

james hobbs
June 26th, 2011 at 1:15 pm

It ask for Exchange password which I do not have

Gusto
June 28th, 2011 at 12:01 pm

Just what I needed.
Great article, thanks for the help

jwilson
July 14th, 2011 at 2:43 pm

@Q – testexchangeconnectivity.com works fine for me on my new Exchange 2010 server for Autodiscover + ActiveSync. And test-activesyncconnectivity cmdlet works on the server. iPhone adds the account, but will not sync: “Cannnot Get Mail. The connection to the server has failed.” This despite wiping the iPhone and starting fresh after it initially wouldn’t work. And I’ve connected dozens of iPhones to other servers, and mine worked fine on my Exchange 2007. First time I’ve seen testexchangeconnectivity.com work, the account add properly, test-activesyncconnectivity works, but no sync of mail, contacts or calendar. Anyone have any ideas?

Jarryd
July 27th, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Thank you so much!! very helpful

Marzeth
August 9th, 2011 at 7:06 pm

I only want to sync my business Email and Calendar, but keep synching my Contacts through my Outlook at home.

I read elsewhere that once you setup an Exchange account, your contacts are overwritten and you cannot sync Contacts from iTunes/Outlook. Is this true?

Many Thanks!

Ivan
August 11th, 2011 at 7:59 pm

For whatever reason this didn’t work for me. Instead of selecting “Exchange” for the type of account I did “Other”. And then it worked. Go figure. I used an exchange setup for my laptop. I don’t know if I’ll get the full features but my email is working.

Sara
August 18th, 2011 at 7:52 pm

For the question from remo; “I just wanna ask, why it can’t verify my account though I put the correct server, username and password?”

We had the same issue, all information was correct yet it would not verify the account. We discovered that the iphone has SSL turned on automatically when you try to set up an exchange account, so you may try to Save the account despite the warning that it may not get e-mail etc, then go back to the mail settings for that account and turn off the SSL setting. That worked for us.

PonchoBuck
August 31st, 2011 at 8:57 pm

Had problems with iphone4 users not connecting to Exchange 2010. Users had more than one Apple device (iphone4, ipad2, etc.) and Exchange would verify okay when setting up Exchange activesync on the phone but would not connect with the iphone4 (“cannot connect to server” error message). Application event log would generate Event ID1008 Source MSExchange ActiveSync corrupt connection…, etc. each time an activesync was initiated but deleteing the Exchange connection on the iphone and recreating it would not cure.

Solution: Logging into 2010 OWA for the affected users, deleting the connections under, “options”, “alloptions”, “phone”. Wouldn’t some documentation be nice for these?

moontech
September 21st, 2011 at 1:08 am

I installed my 1st device an iphone4 to an sbs 2011 server although it did connect, it prompted me for a 4 digit security code( on the phone. Now i have to unlock the phone everytime I goto use it. Just wondering if that was normal