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Microsoft adds IMAP support to Outlook.com (formally Hotmail/Live Mail) email

Microsoft has finally added IMAP support to their Outlook.com (formally Hotmail/Live Mail) email accounts.


This now means that you can connect to your online Outlook.com email account using a proper email application like Mail on the Mac and all your email will remain in sync between all your devices. That includes your computer and your smartphone and/or tablet.


Why would you want this. Because web browsers make poor email applications whereas a proper email application like Mail on the Mac makes managing your email easier and more efficient. Plus, while you are using the computer, you can keep the email application running in the background and be alerted to incoming email as soon as it arrives rather than having to log-in using the web browser and hitting refresh to check for new email.


How to setup Mail on the Mac to access your Outlook.com email account.


Launch the Mail application buy clicking on its icon on the Dock.


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Select ‘Preferences’ from the Mail menu


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With the ‘Accounts’ tab selected click on the Add ‘+’ button in the bottom left corner of the window.


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In the ‘Add Account’ pane fill-in the ‘Full Name:’ and ‘Email Address:’ fields but leave the ‘Password:’ field blank.


IMPORTANT! When fill in in the ‘Email Address:’ field only fill-in the part of the address before the ‘@’ symbol.

For example: If your email address is janedoe@hotmail.com just fill-in ‘janedoe’


Click the ‘Continue’ button.


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In the ‘Incoming Mail Server’ pane select ‘IMAP’ in the ‘Account Type:’ pull-down menu.


In the ‘Description:’ field add Outlook Mail or something else descriptive so you know the account settings are for your Outlook.com email account.


In the ‘Incoming Mail Server:’ field add ‘imap-mail.outlook.com’


In the ‘User Name:’ field add your full email address.


In the “Password:’ field add you password.


Click the ‘Continue’ button.


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In the ‘Outgoing Mail Server’ pane the ‘Description:’ field should already be filled-in base on the previous pane.


In the ‘Outgoing Mail Server:’ field add ‘smtp-mail.outlook.com’


Add a checkmark to ‘Use only this server’ if it is not already there.


Add a checkmark to ‘Use Authentication’ if it is not already there.


In the ‘User Name:’ field add your full email address.


In the “Password:’ field add you password.


Click the ‘Continue’ button to finish.


User uploaded file


Test the account by sending email to and from the account.


If you don't have another email account to do this from ask a friend or family member to send you a test email and then reply to it to complete your testing.

Posted on Sep 14, 2013 4:16 PM

Reply
23 replies

Sep 15, 2013 3:38 AM in response to Gino Cerullo

Hi there, thxs for posting up those instruction. Have been trying to set mine up for a couple of days now without success. During the setup process I get this message after entering the imap line.


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Later on when I try to take the account online & check for mails I get this error


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I can assure you that my email and password are correct - tried this a billion times. For some reason there is an issue and I just cant put my finger on it. Any ideas?

Cheers

Sep 15, 2013 6:12 AM in response to pweester

Just so you know, I've set this up in Mail on both Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and 10.7 Lion and it worked flawlessly.


If you haven't already I suggest that you delete the account that you set up and follow my instructions EXACTLY!


If you have already followed my instructions make sure that the ‘User Name:’ you enter is the complete email address you use for your Outlook.com account.


Example of a complete account User Name: janedoe@hotmail.com


Also, make sure you add it only on the ‘Incoming Mail Server’ and ‘Outgoing Mail Server’ panes. On the ‘Add Account’ pane just use the part before the ‘@’ symbol.


Example: janedoe


This is because Mail defaults to trying to set up the accounts as POP instead of IMAP which is NOT what you want.

Sep 15, 2013 7:43 AM in response to Gino Cerullo

It didnt work for me! I need my email back, since Hotmail (outlook.com) announced they were supporting IMAP I decided to erease my old POP account and tryed the movement to new IMAP protocol. There is no email since I made it! Only syncronized the ereased messages. No more! I looks like freezed all the time. The connection seems to be ok (green lights on both Imap and smtp, but nothin actually works. On the Account info, there is info about sizing the folders but, nothing get down or anything else!

Please Helppp!

Sep 15, 2013 7:49 AM in response to Gino Cerullo

Here is an alternate method for setting up your Outlook.com mail account in Mail on the Mac.


Launch the Mail application buy clicking on its icon on the Dock.


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Select ‘Preferences’ from the Mail menu


User uploaded file


With the ‘Accounts’ tab selected click on the Add ‘+’ button in the bottom left corner of the window.


User uploaded file


In the ‘Add Account’ pane fill-in the required fields as follows.


In the ‘Full Name:’ field add your full name.


In the ‘Email Address:’ field add your full email address.


In the “Password:’ field add you password.


IMPORTANT! Hold down the ‘option‘ key on the keyboard when you click the ‘Continue’ button.


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In the ‘Incoming Mail Server’ pane select ‘IMAP’ in the ‘Account Type:’ pull-down menu.


In the ‘Description:’ field add Outlook Mail or something else descriptive so you know the account settings are for your Outlook.com email account.


In the ‘Incoming Mail Server:’ field change the address to ‘imap-mail.outlook.com’


In the ‘User Name:’ field add your full email address if it is not already there.


In the “Password:’ field add you password if it is not already there.


Click the ‘Continue’ button.


User uploaded file


In the ‘Outgoing Mail Server’ pane the ‘Description:’ field should already be filled-in base on the previous pane or fill it in if it is not already there.


In the ‘Outgoing Mail Server:’ field add ‘smtp-mail.outlook.com’


Add a checkmark to ‘Use only this server’ if it is not already there.


Add a checkmark to ‘Use Authentication’ if it is not already there.


In the ‘User Name:’ field add your full email address if it is not already there.


In the “Password:’ field add you password if it is not already there.


Click the ‘Continue’ button to finish.


User uploaded file


Test the account by sending email to and from the account.


If you don't have another email account to do this from ask a friend or family member to send you a test email and then reply to it to complete your testing.

Sep 15, 2013 8:28 AM in response to yv1650c

As Csound1 indicate, Microsoft is still working out some kinks.


Anyway, that's the problem with POP email. It does not ‘sync’ with the server it will pull down the mail from the server and depending on additional settings will delete them from the server once they have been copied to the local machine.


Before you do anything else make sure that your email has not been deleted from the server. To do that use your web browser to log in to your Outlook.com email account and check that all your email is still there.


The other thing you may want to do is to check and see if the email directory for you POP account is still on your computer.


From the Finder hold down the ‘option’ key on the keyboard and select Library from the Go menu.


In the Library directory go to Mail > V2 and look for a directory that starts with POP. It may also have your email account as the part of the name. If it is still there make a back up copy of it and move the backup to the Desktop for now.


Once you've done that add your Outlook.com email account to Mail in the usual method so that it creates a POP account. See if your mail is restored.


Also, do you backup your computer? If yes then you can also restore any lost email from the backup. If not you should start backing up your computer. Apple makes it really easy using Time Machine and a spare hard drive or a Time Capsule.

Sep 17, 2013 5:06 PM in response to cmalberto

I was reading the Microsoft Blog annoucing this and in the comments section there was some clarification from one of the Microsoft developers about the settings in Mail on the Mac.


Mail on the Mac has a couple of default settings that don't play well with Microsoft’s IMAP implementation.


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For Sent Messages Mail defaults to “Store sent messages on the server.” Since Microsoft’s server defaults to savings all messages sent through it this setting should be turned off in Mail. The downside to this is that you end up with duplicate Sent messages, the ones on the server and the ones store locally in Mail on the Mac. If you delete the Sent message on the Mac it will not be deleted on the server. You have to do it again on the server.


For Deleted Messages (Trash setting in Mail) Mail defaults to “Store deleted messages on server.” This plays havoc with Microsoft’s server and needs to be set to off in Mail on the Mac as well. This isn’t too bad since messages deleted on the Mac get deleted properly on Microsoft’s server but the Deleted Messages mailboxes don’t synchronize properly so if you send something to the Trash in Mail on the Mac but don’t delete it is not in the corresponding Deleted mailbox on the server.


Bottom line is that Microsoft has an implimentation problem and the full benefits of IMAP, the synchronization of mailboxes between server and client is not fully realized. If they can solve those two problems then this will become a top notch service but until then iCloud is still the best of the freely availble IMAP mail services. And no Gmail is not a good since it defaults to storing ALL messages even the ones you ask it to delete which forces you to log in through the web browser to actually delete messages.

Sep 17, 2013 6:39 PM in response to Gino Cerullo

I will certainly try it for now. Not sure it helps to explain the moving of Inbox items to another folk(ie...not sent nor trash). I sometimes get IMAP errors in the Mail app and sometimes I don't but regardless, I don't see the removal on the Server Inbox but will find the in the moved folder too...assuming I didn't get the error message. Just plain wierd - so surprised that MS didn't go ahead and exposed the EAS instead. That seems to always work with the mail.app.

Sep 19, 2013 1:07 AM in response to Gino Cerullo

I've set off the two things you wrote to set off but no way to send to trash online the mail I send to trash on Apple Mail. Even if I just move a mail to another folder I find it in the new folder and also in the incoming folder. The mail becomes duplicate!

Microsoft must work hard to reach what gmail, icloud and many others have since a long time...

Microsoft adds IMAP support to Outlook.com (formally Hotmail/Live Mail) email

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