Get Hotmail on your iPhone
Newsflash: People still use Microsoft’s relatively-unimpressive Hotmail email service. And if you’re a Hotmail user and sport an iPhone, you may have run into difficulties checking your Hotmail account on the phone via Mail. But if you’re thoroughly entrenched and have hundreds of contacts, switching to a new, iPhone-friendly email address may not be an option.
Fortunately for you, our cohorts at Mac OS X Hints have your back, detailing steps that will allow you to use Gmail to access and send Hotmail emails on the iPhone. (You’ll also be able to use these steps to similarly set-up Hotmail-sending-and-receiving in Apple Mail.)
You’ll need a Gmail address with IMAP enabled, and you’ll have to set up your Hotmail account to forward emails to that Gmail address. Tweak a few preferences in Gmail, and set up the account on your iPhone using the recommended settings on Mac OS X Hints.
If you follow the instructions carefully, you’ll be able to use Gmail to view and send Hotmail emails on your iPhone, without ever having to log into Hotmail again (hooray!).
Category: Tips & Troubleshooting
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Comments (9)
This was a great tip, though after reading it, there was a certain sense of "oh, right, duh" about it. But then, I think most great tips are like that :)
I've gone ahead and set it up, but the first test email has yet to come through...
Posted by Steve H. | January 1, 2008 1:47 AM
Unfortunately, this hint only works for people who have a paid hotmail premium account. The other 99.9% of hotmail users cannot use the "forwarding" or POP3 access feature mentioned in the hint essential to make this hint work.
Posted by Phillip | January 1, 2008 9:08 AM
Actually, gmail can automatically grab messages from any POP server, including free hotmail.
-dan
Posted by danham | January 2, 2008 8:43 AM
Oops, my previous comment assumed you could get free POP with hotmail.
What was I thinking? It only took about 10 minutes of drilling down through tiny "About" links hidden at the bottom of MSN pages to learn the error of my ways.
I sure hope those people don't try to produce an OS. Ooops again.
-dan
Posted by danham | January 2, 2008 8:53 AM
This article is, for all practical purposes, worthless.
Free hotmail allows forwarding, but only to other Microsoft properties - like msn.com and live.com. It does _not_ forward to GMail.
So our current best hope is for Firmware 1.1.3, where we can setup a web shortcut to Hotmail Classic on the Springboard.
p.s. Dan, Microsoft didn't create Hotmail, they bought it.
Posted by Sean | January 2, 2008 3:51 PM
Actually, the story gets WORSE. It's only VERY recently that forwarding was added to the paid version of hotmail.
Prior to that, it was like the roach motel...
Posted by tony | January 2, 2008 3:53 PM
@Sean I wouldn't say "worthless"; if people really need it they'll get the paid version.
Also, I never said Microsoft *created* Hotmail; I just said it was theirs -- which it is.
Posted by Dan Pourhadi | January 2, 2008 3:59 PM
@Dan, true enough. But as it stands, the article is misleading, making you believe it can be done simply by configuration. It should open with "for a small fee ... you can get Hotmail on your iPhone".
And I know you didn't specifically say MS created Hotmail, but the implication sure was there. ("Boy they created a crappy webmail system, imagine their O/Ses...") To which I would refer you to Windows 2000 Pro - their shining moment :)
Posted by Sean | January 3, 2008 10:40 AM
To do e-mail forwarding to non-Microsoft e-mail services (Live, Hotmail, MSN) you must have a Hotmail Plus account (paid service).
But if you ever come to pay for Hotmail services, you will get POP or IMAP access (I really don't know which one). Thus, you don't need to forward anything.
I don't want to but I have to agree that the tip was worthless.
Posted by Erick | January 4, 2008 6:13 AM