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How do I download my Windows Live Hotmail to my machine?

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Summary: 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.

What are Hotmail's POP3 and SMTP settings? I want to download my email into my desktop email program instead of using the new Windows Live Hotmail user interface.

That's actually a representative question that brings together a couple of things that people have been asking for:

  • An alternative to the new Windows Live Hotmail interface, which many people apparently don't like.

  • The ability to download Hotmail into a desktop mail application, for which people have been asking for years.

There is an answer, but unfortunately the answer won't make everyone happy.

In the past, users of Outlook Express were able to download email from their MSN Hotmail accounts directly into OE. Unfortunately Microsoft began phasing this out some years ago without providing a suitable replacement. Essentially MSN Hotmail users were left out in the cold - the official line was that they had to use the web interface and only the web interface.

In recent months things appear to have changed.

Windows Live Mail, which is a free downloadable desktop email program that effectively replaces Outlook Express officially supports Windows Live Hotmail accounts. In other words you can configure Windows Live Mail to download your Windows Live Hotmail mail.

Microsoft Office Outlook Connector is a free downloadable add-in for Microsoft Outlook 2003 or 2007 that adds support for downloading your Windows Live Hotmail directly into Outlook.

"... you can configure Windows Live Mail to download your Windows Live Hotmail mail."

This is great news for users of those email programs, or those willing to switch to those email programs. Among other things it means that there's now an official way to download and backup your Windows Live Hotmail.

However if you use another email program things are still not so rosy.

If, like me, you use Thunderbird, there is the WebMail extension. Using this extension you can download not only Windows Live Hotmail, but also several other web-based email accounts into Thunderbird. The downside is that it's naturally not supported by Microsoft. And of course it requires that you run Thunderbird. All that being said, it's a fine solution for Thunderbird users.

I'm not aware of solutions for other mailers.

Specifically, where this comes up short for many people, is that I'm not aware of a solution for mobile devices such as Blackberry or Palm PDA and phones. Those require standard POP3/SMTP email settings, which Windows Live Hotmail does not supply. Naturally you can view your Hotmail in a web browser, but on portable devices that's often very difficult to manage.

However, there is a workaround.

Windows Live Hotmail will now allow you to forward your email to another address. So, to receive your email using a mailer that requires a POP3/SMTP connection, you can:

  1. Open a GMail account.

  2. Configure your email client to use GMail's POP3 and SMTP services.

  3. Configure your Windows Live Hotmail account to automatically forward all incoming email to your GMail account.

That's all there is too it. Now you can access all the email sent to your Windows Live Hotmail account on whatever device you prefer. If your device supports the configuration, you can even change it to set your return address to be "From:" your Hotmail address, even though you might be sending through GMail.

Related:

Article 11879 | Posted October 3, 2007

Recent Comments
26 Comments

I use OE6 and have recently opened a Windows Live e-mail account. I find it isn't possible to access the e-mail address ****@live.co.uk, though it is possible to access an old e-mail address that I have which is ****@hotmail.co.uk! So it seems that addresses ending in @live.co.uk are the ones being discrimiated against! Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be possible to get a new hotmail adress ending in @hotmail.co.uk and my old one is too frivolous for general use.

With the @live.co.uk address, the error message says "Access to Hotmail via Outlook and Outlook Express now requires a subscription. Please sign up at http://join.msn.com/general/Email" However I can't see anything on the site about how to subscribe! No such message comes up when using the @hotmail.co.uk address.

Finally to add insult to injury, when I tried to redirect e-mail from the @live.co.uk account to my domain e-mail address, it doen't recognise it as a domain! Maybe domains ending in .co.uk are unacceptable!

Any advice would be appreciated.

Chris

Posted by: Chris Gutch at February 4, 2008 3:30 AM

how can i down load hotmail on to my laptop so when i open my start window i can go straight to hotmail

Posted by: jason miller at February 26, 2008 2:49 PM

The "just forward it to your gmail account" advice no longer works. When I put in a gmail address as the destination, Hotmail gives me this error message: 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.

Posted by: alm at April 10, 2008 7:28 PM

But it doesn't accept my "custom domain" either. Hotmail Help says, "You can forward e-mail that's sent to your Windows Live Hotmail Inbox or custom folder to another hotmail.com, MSN.com, Live.com, or Windows Live Admin Center e-mail address."

Posted by: alm at April 10, 2008 7:34 PM

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Forwarding works for many people. Please read this article:
http://ask-leo.com/how_do_i_automatically_forward_my_windows_live_hotmail_mail.html

Leo


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Posted by: Leo A. Notenboom at April 12, 2008 9:15 AM

Tried what you suggested as far as forwarding hotmail address to my Gmail account, MS now has this disabled as well.. figures..

Posted by: Shawn Stietz at May 21, 2008 12:30 PM

hotmail will not allow me to forward email directly to my new gmail account??

Posted by: Victoria at June 18, 2008 5:48 AM

I want to ask, how i can login on my hotmail? I by new computer and i cant login:-(((((

Posted by: GOCA at July 10, 2008 5:01 AM

Regarding HOtmail I suppose I have grandfathered into continued OE functionality.  Lucky me.
 
Regarding the inference to SmartPhone functionality.  I have an HTC Wizard (many different phones are built on this platform), the specific model is Cingular 8125.  It is standard equipped with Windows Mobile 5 (many hacked ROMs to 6.1 but not yet deployed to this device).  An included application service is the familiar MSN.  Jack the phone into WiFi, or the Phone Co. Available net connect.  In this area it is GPRS which is about the same as 802.11g for speed and can connect from all secluded areas of this area.
 
This has messenger, home (search, spam, etc.), hotmail.  There is a messaging option in which you can list pops like gmail, sbcglobal, coxnet, sprintnet, etc. standard mailbox address.  And it also has as in the old OE a slot with just use hotmail listed.  I had acquired a hotmail account a decade or so back when 486 was the new gee-whiz processor of the future.  Besides the assorted spaminations.  Hotmail has outlived many ISP I have employed in the past.
 
I would agree with previously poster, the Live mail desktop app is not a pleasant experience.  It reeks in my humble opinion. I like to include a smiling me thumbnail at the beginning of a mail note.  and occasionally blend an illustration into the text.  Live mail client is not at all flexible for this formatting.  It is slow and unpleasant to look at.  But, it is new and could possibly go through some changes.  There is after all IE8 in the wings.  Even though the mail client idea was to unwind from IE from what appearances would seem.
 
I would suppose should OE stop working with Hotmail.  I would have to abandon it for Gmail or actually consider that puke splater livemail client.
Posted by: CrowdedCranium at September 5, 2008 3:44 PM

You can synchronize your hotmail messages to your MS-Outlook by usinbg Microsoft Outlook Connector. Search the internet for this small file provided by Microsoft and install it on your machine. I use this file to synchronize my emails with MS-Outlook, it is working with MS-Outlook.
Let me know if you have any problem.
Thanks

Posted by: Fadi at October 4, 2008 5:42 PM

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