Get Hotmail email on Gmail

In an earlier post I described two methods by which you can link email accounts – Gmail to Hotmail. You could either forward messages or add the Gmail account to the MSN email service. However, today, I shall tell you how to accomplish the opposite; i.e. get Hotmail email in your Gmail account. You would then be able to save time and check messages from a single account.

Since free POP3 Hotmail access has been allowed, the account can be configured in most, if not all, popular email clients like Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail, Apple Mail, Thunderbird etc. As long as the POP email protocol is supported by the program, you would be able to download Hotmail email. The same technology (Post Office Protocol) will employed when adding Hotmail email to a Gmail account.

Get Hotmail email at your Gmail account

We would be using the Hotmail POP3 settings to add the account on Gmail. This is a fairly simple process and can be completed in a few minutes.

1. Log in at your Gmail email account.
2. Click the “Settings” link from the top right and move to the “Accounts and Import” tab – [Slide 1].
3. Hit the “Add POP3 email account” button – [Slide 1] – which should bring up a small pop-up window.
4. In this pop-up, type in your Hotmail email address and click the “Next step” button – [Slides 2 and 3].
5. Provide the Hotmail email account password – [Slide 4].
6. As you can see, Gmail gets the Hotmail POP settings on its own – [Slide 5].
7. You can also choose the different options on how you would like to get Hotmail email on Gmail. I like to use the settings shown in slide 6.
8. In the next screen, simply click “Next Step” button – [Slide 7].
9. Enter your name and continue – [Slide 8].
10. Replies composed for the Hotmail emails received on Gmail can either be sent from the Gmail address or Hotmail servers. I chose the first option – [Slide 9].
11. The Gmail account is almost ready to start receiving Hotmail emails, one last step remains – confirming your action. Click on the “Send Verification” button – [Slide 10].
12. Now open your Hotmail account and get the code from the email you would have just received from Gmail. Enter it in the blank field in the Gmail pop-up window and hit the “Verify” button – [Slide 11].

As far as I know, with the procedure detailed above, you can get MSN email on your Gmail account whether it ends in hotmail.com, live.com or msn.com.

Note: You may also think of simply forwarding Hotmail email to Gmail instead of adding the account. At the time of writing, you can forward messages to one other email account. Check under “Options” -> “More Options” -> “Forward mail to another e-mail account” at your Hotmail account.

Side note: I thought that the process detailed above can help subscribers who have the autoreply option missing at their Hotmail accounts because they could now use the equivalent functionality at Gmail. However, this little experiment of mine failed. Dommage!

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