Start Using Hotmail with Microsoft Entourage or Apple Mail
Tuesday August 4th, 2009
The following article which describes how to setup Windows Live Hotmail account on your Mac’s Microsoft Entourage e-mail client app, was taken from a web page on Microsoft’s web site. The method described can also be applied to Apple‘s Mail.app to use Hotmail from within Mail on Mac OS X (tested only on Leopard at the date of this writing). Alternatively you can download and run a small utility app called Mail Setup which is claimed to run on both PPC and Intel Macs – this program can setup most e-mail accounts for you including but not limited to MSN Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, AOL / AIM Mail, Gmail, etc.
Windows Live Hotmail accounts, including free accounts, can now be set up in Entourage as POPA common type of Internet-based mail account. Examples are Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. After you add a POP account to Entourage, messages from the account appear in the folder list under On My Computer.
Important
All Windows Live Hotmail accounts must be set up in Entourage as POPA common type of Internet-based mail account. Examples are Windows Live Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail. After you add a POP account to Entourage, messages from the account appear in the folder list under On My Computer. To set up an account, follow all the instructions in the following sections (you cannot use the Entourage Account Setup Assistant for Hotmail setup).
Step 1: Add the account
In a Web browser such as Safari, sign in to your Windows Live Hotmail account. After you sign in successfully, you can sign out.
- In Entourage, on the Entourage menu, click Account Settings.
- Click the arrow next to New Account (icon with the plus sign on an address book card picture), and then click Mail.
- If you see the Account Setup Assistant, click Configure Account Manually.
- In the Account type pop-up menu, click POP, and then click OK.
- On the Account Settings tab, in the Account name box, type the name that you want to use to refer to this account in Entourage.
- Under Personal Information, type the name and the e-mail address that you want to use.
- The name that you type appears in the “From” field of mail messages that you send from the account.
- Under Receiving mail, in the Account ID and Password boxes, enter your e-mail address and password.
- In the POP server box, enter pop3.live.com
- If you do not see the POP server box, click Cancel, and then go back to step 3.
- Click Click here for advanced receiving options, and then select the This POP service requires a secure connection (SSL) check box.
The completed Receiving mail settings should look like this:
- Under Sending mail, in the SMTP server box, enter smtp.live.com
- Click Click here for advanced sending options, and then select the SMTP service requires secure connection (SSL) check box. Also select the options for SMTP server requires authentication and Use same settings as receiving mail server.
The completed Sending mail settings should look like this:
- Under Account name, clear the Include this account in my “Send & Receive All” schedule check box.
- Click the Options tab, and then under Server options, select the Leave a copy of each message on the server check box. Also select the Delete messages from the server after they are deleted from this computer check box.
The completed Server options settings should look like this:
- After you click OK, The Windows Live Hotmail account should appear in the Accounts window.
Step 2: Create a schedule to send and receive messages
Important
A Windows Live Hotmail account should not be set up to send and receive messages more frequently than every 20 minutes. Otherwise, duplicate copies of messages might appear.
- On the Tools menu, click Schedules, and then click New (big plus sign).
- In the Name box, enter a name for the schedule, such as Hotmail Send and Receive.
- Under When, click the Manually pop-up menu, and then click Repeating Schedule.
- In the Every box, enter a value of 20 or larger.
- Under Action, on the pop-up menu on the left, click Receive Mail, and then in the from pop-up menu, click your Windows Live Hotmail account.
- Click Add Action.
- In the new row, click the Receive Mail pop-up menu, and then click Send All.
The completed schedule should look like the following:
- Click OK, and the schedule that you created should appear in the Schedules dialog box.
Step 3: Use your account in Entourage and on the Web
Messages from your Windows Live Hotmail Inbox folder will appear in Entourage in the folder list in the pane of the Entourage window that contains folders for messages, contacts, and other items. If the folder list is not visible, on the View menu, click Show Folder List. If you are working in Calendar view, Show Folder List is available on from the Calendar menu. under On My Computer.
Messages in folders other than the Inbox will be available only on the Windows Live Hotmail Web site.
Entourage will not receive messages from your Windows Live Hotmail Junk folder. It’s recommended that you sign in to your Windows Live Hotmail account in a Web browser periodically (at least once a month) to see whether any important messages were directed to the Junk folder.
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Hi
Followed your instructions – which were clear and easy to follow – BUT I cannot get my hotmail through entourage as I get an error message saying:
Entourage cannot find the server. Verify the server information is entered correctly in the Account Settings, and that your DNS settings in the Network pane of System Preferences are correct ( this has lost me!!!)
Then:
Explanation
Cannot retrieve mail
Can you advise further I am a novice with the computer.
Regards
Margaret
how can I help you? Your settings seem to need a revision or you have a connection problem.
It sounds like your problem has something to do with the connection between your ISP and Microsot’s servers assuming you have done your settings correctly alright.
Fairly great article, definitely informative information. Never ever considered I’d find the tips I need in this article. I’ve been scouring all over the internet for a while now and had been starting to get irritated. Fortunately, I happened across your site and acquired precisely what I had been searching for.
why, thank you
Hi,
Thank you for such clear instructions! I set up my Entourage hotmail accounts a long time ago. I very, very, very rarely log onto Hotmail but did a week or so ago and found out that none of the emails I was deleting in Entourage were being deleted on Hotmail. I looked at the settings under options and have them configured the way you suggest, delete from server when deleted from this computer. I wasn’t really loosing any sleep over it until for some reason today Entourage decided it needed to download all the emails sitting on Hotmail which is 15k because nothing was being deleted and now I have dups of emails I didn’t delete plus all the ones I did. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
Sorry if it’s a bit off topic but I’d like to know if this issue about the iphone 4 is important or not. I’d like to buy the new one and I was wondering if the calls actually drop more or not. Thanks a lot
Yes, it is worth switching, to, with all the productivity features, etc. As for reducing call sosts, it might be useful using the Skype app for iPhone.
The setting up instructions are very clear and certainly helpful, but I am unable to send/receive mail;
1 Question in the field Account ID – do I need to put my complete email id?
I have put in xxxxxxxxxx@hotmail.com; is this correct?
I have setup the Account as suggested above and I get a message
Error
” An operation on the server timed out. The server may be down,overloaded or there may be too much net traffic.
Explanation
Could not retrieve mail.
Account name “hotmail”
Error 3259
Your help is highly appreciated!
Cheers
Nitish
PS: Do you have a similar instructions for setting up yahoo account?
Sorry for the lateness in the reply which was due to technical problems with the mail system.
To make sure your settings are correct, please verify your incoming server is POP3 and the incoming mail server is pop.live.com.
Your user name as the e-mail sounds correct in your case.
The New Outlook for Mac bundled with Microsoft Office 2011 for Mac which replaces Microsoft Entourage for messaging, calendar and collaboration, handles automatic setting up accounts better. However given the same instructions, I was able to set-up painlessly and smoothly my Windowslive and Hotmail accounts on Apple Mail.
For setting up Yahoo! Account, you may want to upgrade to Yahoo Mail Plus and use the automatic configuration app mentioned above.
(Username format is as same as Hotmail’s, and the mail servers are pop.mail.yahoo.com and smtp.mail.yahoo.com for incoming and outgoing mail servers respectively)
Hey great thanks a lot it works!!!!!
Hei!
Im having no problem with the setup to the mac email client, but in my hotmail I have folders (work mails goes to the folder work etc) In the mac email client I only get the mails that drops in my hotmail inbox not the emails from my folders. Any ide how I can fix this ?
BR
Jon
There appears to be no possible fix for this, I’m afraid, ever since Microsoft decided to continue the Hotmail service only as a POP3 service for mail retrieval (which limits the hard-clients such as Apple Mail, Entourage and Outlook to access only the Inbox of Hotmail).
You might try moving or copying your mail which you want to be downloaded on your Mac, from the other folders to the Inbox in Hotmail and then connect to it from your Mac to download all the messages there – assuming the responsibility to sort out your Inbox on your Mac and categorize the messages in subfolders again.
Bonjour,
J’ai suivi toutes les indications ci-dessus pour configurer 2 comptes hotmail dans Entourage.
La réception des messages marche sans problème, mais pas l’envoi.
Les messages restent bloqués dans la boîte d’envoi et Entourage m’indique le message d’erreur suivant :
Le délai d’une opération sur le serveur a expiré. Le serveur est peut être indisponible, surchargé, ou trop de données transitent sur le réseau.
Erreur : -3259
Que dois-je faire pour que ça fonctionne?
Bonjour,
Est-ce que vous pouvez vérifier que vous avez saisi votre nom d’utilisateur et le mot de passe pour le serveur smtp, c-à-d smtp.live.com en cliquant un bouton libellé ‘plus d’options’ au dessous ?
Bonjour
Merci pour votre topic
Comme Pamela, les messages supprimés sur entourage restent sur le serveur hotmail bien que j’ai coché la case de les supprimer et bien que je spécifie à chq message supprimer du serveur.
Que faire ?
ce n,est pas pratique
merci d,avance pour votre aide
Alexandra
Bonjour Alexandra,
Si votre problème ne se reproduit pas avec un autre compte POP3 (avez-vous en un autre?) ça me dit c’est une spécificité de Hotmail.
Je ne suis pas dans le mesure de le tester sur mon compte personnelle, car j’ai plusieurs ordinateurs et je veux que tous d’eux soient synchronisés avec mes messages Hotmail.
Cependant j’assume que vous êtes déjà au courant d’une fonction dans Microsoft Entourage (ainsi que MS Outlook pour Mac), quand vous droit-cliquer sur un message, vous pouvez marquer le messages pour être supprimés du serveur et votre Mac à la prochaine connexion et cela n’a pas marché.
Hi and thanks for your great article.
How do I show my emails that were in my hotmail inbox on line in my entourange? They haven’t come up automatically. Can I get them to come?
Sam
Did you just set up your Hotmail account, or has it been there for a while now?
I have had my account for about 5 years.