Hotmail on Your Desktop

I wrote a tutorial a while ago that documented how to use a Linux application called ‘GetLive’ to access your Hotmail/Live Mail accounts from a desktop email client. I never moved that tutorial over to this new site but I’m continuing to receive a number of hits from users looking for configuration help (specifically help for the “/usr/bin/getlive line 731″ configuration error). Keep reading if this is you or if you want Hotmail/Live Mail’s new POP3/SMTP details.

Microsoft are begining to catch up with other web-based email providers such as GMail in allowing users to access their email (both send and receive) from their desktop email clients (or compatible web-based clients such as GMail). Microsoft haven’t gone all the way and provided IMAP support (like GMail), but for those of you who still use Hotmail/Live Mail POP3/SMTP is a good place to start.

If you’ve got a Hotmail/Live Mail account then you can use the following details to access your account from your favourite email client (POP3 is for receiving, SMTP is for sending):

POP3 Settings:
POP server: pop3.live.com (Port 995)
POP SSL required? Yes
User name: The email address you use to sign in to Hotmail/Live Mail
Password: The password you use to sign in to Hotmail/Live Mail

SMTP Settings:
SMTP server: smtp.live.com (Port 25 or 587)
Authentication required? Yes (this is the same user name & password as above)
TLS/SSL required? Yes

And now that Microsoft have provided POP3/SMTP support what better time to give GMail a go. Sign up for a GMail account (if you haven’t already got one), select “settings” from the top right of the screen, select “accounts”, and then use the details above to add your Hotmail/Live Mail account to GMail. You can still send and receive using your Hotmail/Live Mail account if the need arises but you can use the much quicker, more customisable, better GMail interface.

And for those of you who have read this far but still want to give “GetLive” a go then you can have a look at my old article that has been archived here (although please add any comments on this post).

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