Configure Hotmail on Windows Live Mail

By default, Windows Live Mail, the recommended free email program for Windows 7, sets up a Hotmail email address using the HTTP protocol. This keeps the account on your computer in tune (or synced) with the one on the server.

But now with the availability of free Hotmail POP access, one can also configure the account on Windows Live Mail through the Post Office Protocol. And why should you do this? Read on.

Advantage of configuring Hotmail on Windows Live Mail

If you’ve ever cared to read the small print you’ll know that the free service cannot be blamed for any loss of information (messages and the contact list). It’s solely up to you to backup of Hotmail email. And herein lays a big advantage in using POP3 to configure Hotmail account on Windows Live Mail.

Actually any email client that has support for the Post Office Protocol can be used. I recommend Windows Live Mail as it’s free and has never given me any problem since the day I first installed it on my Vista computer… about 2 years back.

Instructions to configure Hotmail on Windows Live Mail using POP3

We’ll be using the Hotmail POP settings to configure the email account in Windows Live Mail. Please follow the steps below and refer the slideshow in case of doubt.

1. Start Windows Live Mail program and click on the “Add email account” link [Slide 1].
2. A pop-up is displayed and awaits your inputs. Type in your FULL email address, account password, a display name and (IMPORTANT) remember to put a checkmark in front of “Manually configure server settings for email account” [Slide 2].
3. The next screen might seem intimidating at first; don’t worry, here is all the info you require: [Slide 3]
   1. Choose POP3 for “My incoming mail server is a“.
   2. Put pop3.live.com in the “Incoming server” blank field.
   3. Check “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)” option under the incoming server field. This should change the “Port” to 995 which is exactly what we want.
   4. Log on using “Clear text authentication“
   5. Make sure your full email address is in the Login ID field.
   6. Type in smtp.live.com in the “Outgoing server” field.
   7. Put a checkmark in front of both the “This server requires a secure connection (SSL)” and “My outgoing server requires authentication“.
4. You’ve successfully been able to configure Hotmail email account in Windows Live Mail program using POP3. Click “Finish” button [Slide 4].
5. The program will at once begin to download messages to your computer. Immediately click the “Sync” button from the top menu [Slide 5] and then the “Stop” button in the pop-up window to cancel the download.
6. Important: By default, messages once downloaded to your computer through POP3 will be deleted from the online account. If you don’t want that, the download process has to be stopped! Right click on the Hotmail account name in the left column [Slide 5] and choose “Properties“. Move to the “Advanced” tab and put a check the option to leave a copy of the message on the server. Click “Apply” and “OK“.

You can resume downloading Hotmail email by hitting the Sync button again once you make that small change mentioned in the last point.

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