Microsoft Outlook Error 0x80040201 – Causes and Solutions

Outlook Error 0x80040201Message: "task 'mail.adelphia.net - sending' reported error (0x80040201) : 'unknown error' 0x80040201"

In this article, I am going to elaborate the two different factors which can cause the Outlook error 0x80040201 while sending emails or messages.

First Reason and Solution:

This problem mostly generates due to the corrupted Outlook profile. So as a first recommendation, remove the account and create the new one.

Here are the given steps to create a new profile:

• First close MS Outlook.
• Click on Windows icon and move the cursor toward the control panel.
• Open the “Mail” option.
• By clicking on Mail option, you will get a settings pop up window on the screen. Here, go to “Show Profiles” and open it.
• Start the configuration of the new email account for your email client using “Add” button.
• Add a profile name and click on “Ok” button to move to the next step.
• Now, Auto-Account Setup option asks you to input several basic details like name, email address and password. Move to the next step after filling all the by clicking on the “Next” button.
• Outlook will automatically start synchronizing the input details from the server in order to configure the account.
• After successful configuration of account, finish the process by making a click on “Finish” button.
• Also, check the box "Prompt for a profile to be used" option and click on “Ok”. It tells Microsof Outlook that with which account it should initiate itself.
• Finally, restart Outlook and select new profile.

If the Outlook error 0x80040201 resolves completely by creating the new Outlook account, then move the archived data into the newly created Outlook account using Import & Export function.

Second Reason and Solution:

Sometimes, Outlook Error 0x80040201 appears when a user starts using Outlook with a local PST after disconnecting it from the Exchange server. The contacts of GAL still remain in the Outlook in a corrupt form and start showing error code 0x80040201. In short, corruption within the NK2 file or the cached contacts file may also produce these errors which could be fixed by removing and deleting these contacts or NK2file.

To resolve Outlook Error code 0x80040201 or to delete corrupted NK2 contacts, there are two ways that has described below:

• Start typing the address that shows incorrectly
• Hit down arrow key to select an auto complete address
• Hit Delete key to delete auto complete address

The other way is to delete corrupted or damaged cached email address:

• Open the windows explorer and paste the path in the address bar: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Outlook
• Found the NK2 file at the defined location and delete it.

If the above solution gets crashed in resolving Outlook error 0x80040201 then move to a third party solution such as Outlook data file recovery which always prove as a positive practice. It helps in fixing all kinds of Outlook errors and retrieve PST files into a healthy format without disturbing the original structure of the file.