How to Know If Account Is O365 or Exchange With 4 Easy Tests

Being an IT admin myself, I perform new user onboarding regularly. So I am in the best possible position to teach anyone how to know if an account is O365 or Exchange. It is incredibly important for end-users to know exactly where their emails are kept, whether they are stored on a server on-premises or in the cloud in some large data center.

Once you know that, you can easily add Exchange on Android or set up an on-prem email account on your iPhone. You won’t have to rely on any guesswork. I have four powerful yet easy methods that will help you figure out your account type in no time.

The Basics of Knowing if an Account is O365 or Exchange

Before I began my role as an admin, I was a regular user in an IT company. It was my keen interest in figuring out how the email delivery system worked that transitioned my career journey. You need not alter your career path for a trivial task like this one, but you do need to know some basics.

To make sure you and I are on the same page, I suggest you check out my guide on the difference between Exchange Server and Office 365. If you don’t have enough time, here is a brief breakdown:

• Exchange On-Premises: Here, your company buys server hardware and installs a self-managed license. These mail-managing computers are kept inside your own building.
• Office 365 (also called Exchange Online): This is when your company just subscribes to the service and lets Microsoft deal with the hardware burden.

Then there are also hybrid systems. Once you are able to grasp these, the actual process of how to know if an account is O365 or Exchange becomes a breeze. Let’s start with the methods.

Method 1: Check the WebMail URL

The easiest way is simply to look at the URL in your web browser.

If you check your emails on a site that has outlook.office.com in its address, it is a dead giveaway that your emails are on Office 365.

On the other hand, if the URL has your company name with /owa at the end, then you are on the Exchange Server.

However, this visual method can be tricky at times because Microsoft allows your company to keep custom links. Also, if your company has made the change recently, you may get redirected without even having the time to notice the new URL.

Don’t worry, I have other methods that are more solid than this one.

Method 2: How to Know if an Account is O365 or Exchange via Outlook

If, like me, you also use Outlook desktop classic, then you can attempt this hidden menu method that tells you exactly what server your emails come from.

• Step 1: Open Outlook.
• Step 2: Look for the small Outlook icon on the system tray menu (bottom right side).
• Step 3: Hold the CTRL key and Right-click on that icon.
• Step 4: A small menu appears. Click the Connection Status option.

Now look at the Server Name column. If it has outlook.office365.com, then you are on the cloud. Alternatively, for a purely on-premise system, you will see something like EXCH01.mydomain.local.

Method 3: Check the DNS via Command Line

This method is great if you want to check without logging in or when you don’t have the Outlook Desktop application.

Here, we look at the MX records, which are like digital signposts that tell where a message is to be delivered.

So, open a command prompt (Windows + R then cmd) and type:

nslookup -q=mx companyname.com

Make sure you replace companyname.com with the correct value.

The result is crystal clear. It will show either mail.protection.outlook.com or a specific company address, corresponding to cloud and on-premise, respectively.

What If your Entire Organization is Still on Exchange Server?

If you followed these steps and discovered you are hosting your own email, the next logical step is often to find your Exchange Server version to see if you are operating an outdated version. For instance, both Exchange 2016 and 2019 have reached their end-of-life in October 2025.

Then you can plan a migration towards the new Exchange Server Subscription edition or migrate Exchange to Office 365.

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For either of those scenarios, SysTools is a name you can trust.

My Verdict

I am sure that my guide on how to know if an account is O365 or Exchange clears up the confusion between cloud and local server

For the longest time, I found Microsoft’s email technology incredibly frustrating. My organization’s choice to maintain a hybrid setup did not help at all. People would constantly use terms like Exchange, O365, On-Prem, and Cloud Mail, and I didn’t know they were all different.

However, slowly I started to figure out that it is important to know exactly where my mailbox is, especially if I want to set up my email on any new device. I summed up all my years of experience and gave you this guide.

Moreover, I am also sure it feels great to finally understand all this stuff. Knowing your email account type is the first diagnostic step to take if Exchange Server is unavailable. Now you can do it yourself.