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Transfer Messages from Hotmail to Gmail Using Outlook
Posted by Kevin Purdy at 9:00 PM on December 18, 2007
Have you or someone you know stuck with Hotmail through even its Windows Live rebirth but now yearns to jump into Gmail? Tech blog Digital Inspiration suggests using both Outlook and a free download to get the job done:
If you're still catching the occasional mail at that address, you could just read your Hotmail from Gmail. You can also, of course, use Gmail's IMAP friendliness to import messages from almost any mail client.
- Install the Outlook connector and then configure your MSN Hotmail / Windows Live Hotmail accounts with Outlook.
- Once you have all your Hotmail email message available locally inside Outlook, configure Gmail IMAP access inside Outlook.
- Now copy or just drag-n-drop the Hotmail folders (downloaded in Step 1) over your Gmail Inbox folder in Outlook.
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
gpzbc
Posted 9:42 AM 18/12/07
The new Windows Live Mail email client is a good way to handle your gmail and hotmail accounts. It works seamlessly with hotmail and also gmail once you get the IMAP configured correctly. I have 5 accounts running through it and am really enjoying it.
[get.live.com]
gpzbc
Samson
Posted 9:27 AM 18/12/07
@Joelena - I'm glad that you were able to take advantage of my comment and use this setup. I truly think that LifeHacker should do a write-up on this technique for managing so many accounts through GMail and Thunderbird... It's available for everyone (not just those with Outlook licenses).
What do you think, Kevin Purdy? :-)
Samson
InferiorCatwoman
Posted 8:49 AM 18/12/07
If all you want is all new email to go to another account, Hotmail does have the option of forwarding incoming mail to another address. I have this set up myself, all your old mail is still at Hotmail, though, so if you want everything moved then this wouldn't be for you. But if all you want is a really easy way of getting your new hotmail emails sent to your gmail, this is it. It's just in the options section.
InferiorCatwoman
paqman
Posted 8:30 AM 18/12/07
One thing I noticed when getting hotmail back into your web Gmail account, that when you finally get all your mail into gmail, all the date/times of the emails have been changed to the time that you uploaded it to gmail, thus losing all perspective as to when the emails were received.
One way to remedy this is to upload all the email to a secondary Gmail account, and then have the primary gmail account "fetch" from that secondary account. Then magically, all the original dates are restored!
I actually posted some detailed instructions on how to get Hotmail to your Web gmail account on the gmail forums here:
[groups.google.com]
paqman
Confuzius
Posted 8:28 AM 18/12/07
I was just going to ask if there was a way to do this with Thunderbird, thanks Jolena!
Confuzius
EntrepreneurTim
Posted 8:20 AM 18/12/07
When I transitioned to Gmail a few years ago I used a program called GotMail ([sourceforge.net]) to ease the transition. It's free and will fetch mail at set intervals and forward to another account.
EntrepreneurTim
joelena
Posted 7:21 AM 18/12/07
@Ev: You're in luck!
The Webmail add-on for Thunderbird [webmail.mozdev.org] supports Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Mail.com, Lycos, and Gmail (with free POP and IMAP, why?). I installed it last week thanks to Sampson's [lifehacker.com] comment here: [lifehacker.com], and it works like a charm for my Yahoo and Hotmail accounts.
joelena
Ev
Posted 6:29 AM 18/12/07
Great Now if someone could just help us poor folks who are stuck with AOL mail!!!
Ev