Summary: Windows Live Hotmail now includes the ability to automatically forward all messages received to another account. I'll show you how.
I'm changing email accounts, but I don't want to lose people who have my Hotmail address. How do I automatically forward all my incoming Windows Live Hotmail messages to my new account?
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Until recently the answer to this question was "You can't".
But, say what you will about the new Windows Live Hotmail interface, Microsoft did add a couple of frequently requested features, and forwarding email was one of them.
Reading through the comments on this article you'll see that it does not work for everyone. It absolutely does work for some people - myself included. However some get the error "You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again." If you get this message I have no advice other than to say that apparently you cannot use this feature. We still have no reason as to why it works for some and not others. You might consider using a remote POP3 pickup feature of another service like GMail to fetch your Windows Live Hotmail, rather than forwarding. |
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To automatically forward all of your incoming Windows Live Hotmail messages, login to your account and then click on Options in the upper right:
And then at the bottom of the resulting list, click on More options...:
Click on the link labeled Forward mail to another e-mail account:
That will take you to the following page:
Make sure that Forward your email to another e-mail address is selected, and type the email address you want your Windows Live Hotmail messages to be forwarded to. If you like, click on Keep a copy of forwarded messages in your Windows Live Hotmail inbox. if you want the messages to remain in your Hotmail account.
Click on Save.
IMPORTANT: Windows Live Hotmail will send a confirmation message to the email address you specify. You must read and act on that message before forwarding will happen. This ensures that you do have access to the account, or at least that the recipient of that account does indeed want to receive all the messages.
Once you've done so, all your Windows Live Hotmail messages will be forwarded to that address until you turn it off or until your Hotmail account is closed.
That last is an important point: if your Hotmail account is closed, then message forwarding will stop. You should definitely log into your Windows Live account periodically to make sure that it remains open.
Related:
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How do I download my Windows Live Hotmail to my machine? Windows Live Hotmail has no POP3 or SMTP settings with which to download your mail. However if you use certain mail programs, you can still download.
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Are free email services worth it? Free email services and accounts are convenient and ubiquitous. But free email services aren't the right place to keep your important information.
Article C3167 - October 3, 2007
Alright. i finally figured it out. It turns out that some of the options are hidden in certain browsers and not others (the choice seems to not be very...defined...it also seems to change). I managed to get access to the 'normal' interface (instead of the 'light' one) for the mail account so I could set it to forward to Gmail.
So, here is a guide of you are someone who can't seem to find the options listed in the above article:
1. Try the outlook page in any browser you can find. If you can try the latest IE. If you are lucky, you may find a browser that is compatible. (You will be able to tell by the completely different color scheme/layout)
2. create a contact that is your target email address.
3. go to the options menu and choose set up inbox rules.
4. Set up an inbox 'rule' to say that all mail should be forwarded to the contact defined in step2.
5. Send a test email.. if it doesn't work check you settings.
6. If it still doesn't work, or you can;t find the option I am talking about try another web browser.
I had to use Firefox 3.0.8 to get to the 'full' page (IE6 didn't work for some reason?). Strangely, it didn't work in IE or Chrome...but it had no problem with Firefox....now it seems to work in all but Chrome. So IE first didn't work, then was too lasy to work...and now it works again.
Posted by: Nic (again) at May 8, 2009 4:37 AMI have give up on trying to work out what happened there.
I have hotmail free version, and outlook. I need to forward messages based on rules to my work account. Outlook rules are not available since its hotmail.
What are my options, is there something I can turn on ?
14-May-2009
Leo,
Posted by: Jay at May 16, 2009 7:00 AMI have hotmail, and outlook. Now I have a business email on a company server. I want to forward with filter rules to that email. The outlook send/recieve option is grayed out for rules. Can someone advise on how to get some of my messages forwarding to business account. sorry if this is a repeat but I can't find my first comment
Thanks so much for the wonderful comments and suggestions. I have been so aggravated with Windows and their 'hijacking' of my computer settings with every update, and now with a lack of access to Hotmail and no tech service, I got a Gmail account. I followed Leo's advice on forwarding my e-mail to my gmail account only to have Microsoft once again play the monopoly game of only being able to send it to a msn, live or hotmail account (boo hiss!), I am insanely grateful to Milodog who has helped me dodge the bullet with Windows Live Mail and can NOW finally log on to Gmail and get my important mail from home - and NOT fight to access Hotmail. Thanks so much for your help guys!
Posted by: Lynn Marshall at June 15, 2009 2:18 PMIt seems as though Hotmail has removed the option to keep a copy of the forwarded messages in the original inbox? Is there another way to keep these messages?
Posted by: jodie lyman at July 5, 2009 8:21 AMI'm having a problem with the feature in that I was able to set up email forwarding a while back, but wish to stop the service now. When I log onto my Hotmail account, I'm told to go to my options in order to turn email forwardig off. However, the link on the options page to moderate email forwarding is not there any longer. I have loaded the page on numerous browsers, but am still unsuccessful in accessing the page to moderate the email forwarding features of Hotmail.
Posted by: Dominic at October 6, 2009 1:55 PMOur man Leo has sorted forwarding to google mail. Nice Job! It is not a forward but has the same effect. I have been playing around trying to get my wife's hotmail forwarding (which using the hotmail forwarding page, would not forward. Where my hotmail account which is the same account and free easily forwards). I did have a premium account years ago with a POP3 link and cancelled it after 1 year (2006 I cancelled it.
See below: I GOT IT TO WORK!!, ok.....
In Gmail: go to Settings>Get mail from other accounts>add a mail account you own
- Enter your hotmail address (my address ends with msn.com)
- for the pop server enter: pop3.live.com
- the port is 995
- tick mark "always use secure ssl when retrieving mail"
that's all i did to get it to work, though it does seem that gmail will try to pull your mail every minute, hotmail from what i gather only lets it sign in like this every 15 mins, so at the most your new mail might be 15 mins old, I don't consider this a big deal
--update--
the 15 min lag is true, gmail will try to pull every min, but hotmail will only allow every 15, I'm just glad to have my mail forwarded, so it doesn't bother me much
take care
Technically that's not a forward, but yes, since Windows Live Hotmail added POP3 support you are now able to remotely retrieve it as you describe.
Posted by: !VIM! at October 9, 2009 2:08 AM- Leo
16-Apr-2009
Hotmail allows me to forward to my Gmail per your instructions (thanks). However, when I tried to set up my wife's account, it's returning:
"You're only able to forward mail to a custom domain or an e-mail address that ends in hotmail.com, msn.com, or live.com. Please try again."
Any advise? Did they shut down the forwarding option?
16-Oct-2009
Does anyone know how to forward the windows live mail to an AOL account?
Posted by: Shane at October 31, 2009 6:15 PMTo those of you looking to remove the Hotmail forwarding restriction to only @hotmail, @msn, and @live accounts and enable the ability to keep the emails in your inbox... there is a easy way to do this. I'll give the highlights, you can work out the details. Logon to Hotmail. At the top select More, Mobile. Activate SMS by entering your text capbable cell phone number into the provided field and click next. On next page validate your phone number and click next. Wait for the text message on your phone and enter the PIN number from the text message into the validate field and click next. On next screen under Hotmail, Messenger, and Other Alerts press the Start button (second column on the page). On next page agree to terms and conditions on the page. On next page press Hotmail Settings button. On next page press Setup button. Select None to not actually send any SMS message (or another option if you prefer) then save. You will now have ability to forward to any email account and the option to keep messages in your inbox.
IMHO, Hotmail gets a bad rap... but they have come a long way in the last months. Microsoft has become the evil giant... just as IBM was in the late 1980s (and as Google will be in 15 years). Free POP, free forwarding, free 25GB file storage, minimal ads (compared to Yahoo's new interface), clean interface for basic emailing, etc. I'm not interested in technology holy wars... life's to short. I've use gmail, yahoo, and hotmail and each have pros and cons. Let's all be happy there are choices and we can select the one that meets our own personal needs best.
I hope this helps you out. Good luck. RangerX
Posted by: RangerX at November 14, 2009 11:06 PM