What are MSN HotMail's POP3 and SMTP settings for Outlook Express?

Read the article that everyone's commenting on.
Subscribe to the RSS Feed for comments on this article.

One thing you didn't mention about pop3hot: I'm assuming that to access your hotmail through them, you have to give them your hotmail login and password. In many cases these are the same as your "microsoft passport" login and password.

Basically, for the privilege of getting your Hotmail by POP3, you're giving some unknown company in Belgium the ability to impersonate you, which they are then doing to be able to download your mail from hotmail and provide it through a POP server.

Forget Microsoft catching them and killing your account. Think about an unscrupulous employee there or a hacker who gains access to their servers using your account for nefarious purposes, using information you freely provided.

Yahoo used to have POP access too, but they moved that over to their paid service. Currently the two big-boys who offer non-web access with free accounts are AOL's AIM mail, which I access by IMAP (I'm not sure if POP is available) and Google Gmail, which offers POP access.

Please take a look at the Hotmailpopper program.
Can I use that without problems in OE ?

thanks
Dik Heikoop

One correction - all the above only applies if your Hotmail account is relatively new (created at some point more recent than something like a year before they blocked access from Outlook). If you have an older one, you got an email from Hotmail Member Services saying that as a "long-time user of Hotmail" you get to retain downloading priveleges. I have a couple of Hotmail accounts from 2002 which I never use for anything important any more, but still work in Outlook. So if you've had the account for a while, it's worth a try.

I swear I have read this article (as well as many of the related posts.) I must be an idiot because I am still confused!! :) Are you saying there is nothing I can enter into my "mail server" for incoming mail for my hotmail account?

I have tried every combination of "mail.hotmail.com, pop.mail.hotmail.com, www.hotmail.com, pop.hotmail.com...etc etc you get the picture... )

I also tried to figure out where I can see on my hotmail account, or actual computer I have it set up now.

(I need to set up my hotmail address as the reciever of daily email from a website, but so far everything I have tried has failed.)

Thanks!! Denise

"Are you saying there is nothing I can enter into my "mail server" for incoming mail for my hotmail account?"

Correct. There is nothing FREE that you can enter. You can upgrade to the paid version of hotmail and use Outlook Express. Or, there are third party services that you can use, but they also cost money, and you must give your account information over to them.

HotMail is a *web based* mail server. It's not designed for downloadable mail.

Using Outlook Express or Outlook you should be able to configure an account using "http" protocol instead of pop3.

Perhaps I have a unique situation. I had a pop3 account with MSN... when I went to DSL I had to close it and move to QWEST, and with their cheapest account there is no email account. My @msn account turned into a hotmail account but I retained my @msn address. For a while I couldn't use either Outlook 2000 or 2003, just hotmail online, then one of msn's nice techs slipped while helping me with another problem and told me how to configure my email account and now I can download to both Outlooks on my laptop and desktop. My notes say that my settings are as follows:
GENERAL:name, email address, pop3.email.msn.com, check the "include this account when receiving mail or syncronizing" box.
MAIL SERVER: pop3
INCOMING:pop3.email.msn.com
OUTGOING: smtp.email.msn.com
ACCOUNT NAME:mine
PASSWORD:mine
check boxes:REMEMBER PASSWORD, LOG ON USING SECURE PASSWORD AUTHENTICATION, MY SERVER REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION
SETTINGS: check USE SAME SETTINGS AS MY INCOMING MAIL SERVER
CONNECTION: check CONNECT USING MY LOCAL AREA NETWORK [LAN]
ADDVANCED: SERVER PORT: outgoing stmp [25], incoming pop3 [110]
check MY OUTGOING SERVER [stmp]REQUIRES AUTHENTICATION
LOG ON USING my name and password, check LOG ON USING SPA

Depending on your service provider something similar to this 'might' work for you. It may work because I did have an account with MSN for a long time before I got DSL, but the tech said, "Oops, I'm not sure I was supposed to tell you that." It has been over a year and I have had no problems after I set Outlook as my email program in IE, and told WORD to edit my email. Good luck... Sue

I can confirm the "long-time user of Hotmail" Simon mentions - I still download my email for free into Outlook (not Outlook Express).

I don't think you do need to pay Yahoo for POP access (again, I use it and I don't pay).

In the UK at least you have to agree to receive marketing emails (as a Yahoo! Delivers member) and then you just deselect all the different marketing categories!

Hi all, I have been trying this topic for long time but now I came to know one thing... I had a hotmail account before which was working with Outlook and O Express without any extra setting just with http://... mail. But for some password reasons my account was blocked and I dont remember my secret question and answer and I was forced to sign in for a new hotmail account and this account doesnt work with any of the mail clients.

So I came to a point where I understood only old hotmail accounts workin with email clients and not the new ones...

If I am wrong please correct me ... in case this piece of information brings you some new ideas please let me know... thank you all...

Lady's and Gentlemen, i think you'll find this comment one of the most interesting. All the above information about you not being able to get access to your email accounts at all (or if its a new account is a load of rubish.

I have managed to find all the sever settings to recive and send E-mail through the hotmail servers.

the details i use are as follows

Incoming Mail Server (pop3) --- pop3hot.com

Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP --- mx1.hotmail.com

I hope the above settings will help those in need, if not check out the following link.

http://www.e-eeasy.com/SMTPServerList.aspx

This lists the majority of known email servers ans there are a couple of options to chose from with regards to your hotmail accounts..

To post a comment on "What are MSN HotMail's POP3 and SMTP settings for Outlook Express?", please return to that article's main page.