Microsoft Opens Up POP3 Hotmail Access In Australia

9:00AM January 16, 2009 | Angus Kidman

In the Gmail era, Hotmail might feel like a historic relic, but there are still millions of people (my mother included) using it, so it’s good news that Microsoft has finally opened up POP3 access to the service for Australian users (along with a bunch of other countries). While Microsoft’s announcement of the service emphasises using it for mobile phones, it’s a bigger boon for anyone who wants to access their Hotmail account via a PC client such as Outlook or Thunderbird. Microsoft previously charged for making Hotmail available on a PC via its Hotmail Plus service, so it’s good to see market economics prevailing. While Microsoft promotes its Connector software for accessing Hotmail via Outlook, I’ve found it too buggy to be useful, and plain old POP3 seems a better bet. One caveat: the setup requires using a secure connection (which is a good idea but one many home users ignore), so check through the settings guide carefully (note that the information about needing Hotmail Plus is now redundant). Thanks Jason

Comments

bugwan

January 16, 2009 at 10:24 AM

Wow. If Microsoft had have offered this (most basic) service about 8 years ago, I wouldn’t have left them for Yahoo!, and subsequently Gmail…

Sorry Microsoft, too little, too late.

Fat Wombat

January 16, 2009 at 11:03 AM

The SMTP port number is actually 587.

Tom

January 16, 2009 at 11:13 AM

POP3? How quaint. :)

Jona

January 16, 2009 at 1:32 PM

I very much prefer the new Hotmail UI to the Gmail one. It might be just a little detail, but it’ll probably be enough to get me to switch back (from Gmail).

Kaan Kivilcim

January 16, 2009 at 1:45 PM

Why would you bother with POP3 over IMAP? Makes absolutely no sense…

donkybrother

April 17, 2009 at 12:05 PM

Well ya know. Imap can get a little glitchy at time seven when I am using a non-outlook email client. I personally prefer Pop3, it can be so much better but man why bother with this when you could be using Gmail. However on my phone I use IMAP and set it to only download new messages.
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adamu

January 16, 2009 at 7:09 PM

Now I can use Gmail to check my Hotmail :p

Ryan

January 18, 2009 at 10:00 PM

If you decide to do this then just remember that if you’re using outlook to tick the box that says to leave the messages on the server otherwise you lose everything that is stored in the cloud…

:( oh well…

Zhou

January 18, 2009 at 11:38 PM

Quick question, I’ve set up thunderbird to retreive my hotmaail messages and it worked fine, but for some reason it wont get ANY emails that were received in 09. The last email that it retreived was some day in October, 08. In addition when I tried to do a test email to the main email linked to thunderbird, it wouldnt show up. But from the web client, it arrived fine. …

Am I doing something wrong?

Nathan

January 19, 2009 at 4:48 PM

Thanks Angus, didn’t think I’d ever get Hotmail into Outlook, especially at work! Ryan, thanks for the warning!

GM22

May 14, 2009 at 12:04 AM

I just setup my Gmail to pop Hotmail messages – an account I haven’t used for a while. At least, it’ll stay active (previously MS shut it down for no use).
Here is how I did it: http://gm22.net/2009/05/13/use-gmail-for-your-hotmail/

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