Top

How to check your Hotmail using Mail.app

May 14, 2009 by Ross McKillop 

This tutorial will guide you through setting up Mail, the default email application that comes with OS X, so that you can send and receive your Hotmail messages from directly within Mail.

  1. Start out by launching Mail, and selecting Mail -> Preferences… from the top drop-down menu.

  2. Select the Accounts tab and then click the plus sign ( + ) in the very bottom left corner.

  3. Enter your name, your Hotmail email address, and your Hotmail password in the spaces provided. Click the Continue button.

  4. On the Incoming Mail Server screen select POP as the Account Type:. Enter a descriptive phrase as the Description: (eg. Hotmail) and in the Incoming Mail Server: field enter pop3.live.com. Enter your full @hotmail.com email address as the User Name: and once again enter your Hotmail password in the Password field. Click Continue.

  5. On the Outgoing Mail Server screen once again enter a descriptive name or phrase in the Description: field (again, Hotmail or something similar is a good idea). In the Outgoing Mail Server: field enter smtp.live.com. Make sure Use only this server is not checked. Make sure Use Authentication is checked, and enter your full @hotmail.com address as your User Name. Yet again, enter your Hotmail password in the Password field. Click Continue.

  6. You should now be presented with an Account Summary screen similar to the one below (except your @hotmail.com email address and name will be displayed instead of mine). Click the Create button.

  7. You’ll be taken back to the Accounts tab of the Preferences. Close the Preferences window.

  8. Your Hotmail email will now begin downloading.

  9. A few things to note - it can take some time to download all of your Hotmail messages the first time. Depending on the size of your Hotmail account (how many messages you have etc) you may want to go grab a cup of coffee. When you open one of your Hotmail emails using Mail, it will remain “unread” if you visit Hotmail and check your mail through the web interface (http://mail.live.com). Also, if you delete a message in Mail, it will not be deleted when you visit Hotmail through the web interface.

    If you have any questions, by all means leave a comment below. Happy Hotmail’ing!

Random Posts

Filed Under: Mail, Tutorials

To receive articles like this one delivered directly to your inbox, enter your email address in the field below. You can always opt out of these updates at any time.

Share/Save/Bookmark

Comments

11 Responses to “How to check your Hotmail using Mail.app”

  1. Graycat on June 8th, 2009 11:35 pm

    Hey, Ross

    Nice post and clear guide on setting a Hotmail account into Mail.

    Have you heard any rumours / fixes / work arounds for not being able to fully synch with the online Hotmail account? ie: deleting e-mails in Mail actually get deleted in Hotmail?

  2. Phillycheese on July 17th, 2009 4:44 am

    i can’t send e-mails using these settings, it says, cannot send e-mail using server smtp.live.com
    The sender address philipengland@hotmail.com was rejected by the server smtp.live.com.

    Select a different outgoing mail server from the list below or click Try Later to leave the message in your Outbox until it can be delivered.

    Sending from: Philip England
    can you please help

  3. Cristiano Susin on July 17th, 2009 9:10 pm

    I’m getting the same message: cannot send message using server smtp.live.com.

    Any suggestions????

  4. kris on August 2nd, 2009 1:02 pm

    i replaced “smtp.live.com” with “smtp.hotmail.com”……worked for me

  5. abhishek on August 4th, 2009 3:22 am

    very cool stuff..have been try various tricks n tips.. but nothing wazz working…now this tutorial ways really good..working gr8..thanz mite…

  6. Saleh on August 29th, 2009 8:46 pm

    When i delete the e-mails from my Hotmail account using Mail.app, it will remain … in Mail, it will not be deleted when i visit Hotmail through the web.
    So could you help me please?

  7. Saleh on August 30th, 2009 2:52 pm

    I have recently set up Apple Mac Mail email client to access my Hotmail email via a pop3 connection. Whilst I am able to send and receive email at the present time I cannot find how to delete messgaes on the Hotmail server when deleted on my local machine email client.
    I want the messages to only be deleted on the server when deleted on my machine. In other words I want the hotmail server and my email client to have exactly the same messages saved at any one time.

  8. MLUK on September 6th, 2009 8:39 pm

    I CTRL-Clicked on the account name under the SENT section, and chose `Edit “MAILBOXNAME”.

    Under `outgoing mail server’ choose `EDIT SERVER LIST’, then select the account you are trying to send from.

    Make sure PASSWORD is selected for authentication, and that the full email address and password is entered in the boxes beneath.

    I used default ports, had SSL ticked, and used smtp.live.com as the outgoing server.

    Hope this helps.

  9. gho on September 7th, 2009 9:43 pm

    thanks for the great instructions, ross!

    anyone have any response to graycat’s question about deleting mail in Mail and having that same message deleted in hotmail? i’m running in the same problem and haven’t found any solution(s) yet. :(

    @cristiano — if kris’ suggestion didn’t work, i ran into the same thing and set the port for smtp to be 587 instead of whatever default, and that helped.

    thanks, everyone!

  10. grete on September 21st, 2009 1:17 pm

    Thank you so very very much!
    This tutorial was excelent!

  11. OzDoug on October 1st, 2009 5:52 pm

    Thanks for the great tutorial!
    Also Thanks to MLUK - enabling the password for authentication under the “advanced” tab of the “EDIT SERVER LIST” option fixed my unable to send problem.

Feel free to leave a comment...
and oh, if you want a pic to show with your comment, go get a gravatar!





Bottom