Configuring Hotmail, Live & MSN accounts in Microsoft Outlook

May 15, 2011

There are two ways to get your Hotmail / MSN email in Outlook: use the Outlook Hotmail Connector or POP3.

Configuring the Outlook Hotmail Connector

The recommended solution is to use the Outlook Connector, but it works with Outlook 2003/2007/2010 only. For all versions of Outlook (and any email program that supports POP3) you can use POP3. Outlook 2010 64-bit requires the 64-bit connector.

After you download the Outlook Connector, close Outlook (if open) and install the connector. Go to Control panel, Mail and create a new account using the Connector.

Configuring POP/SMTP

Set up a POP3 account using the following settings:

Incoming server name: pop3.live.com
Outgoing server: smtp.live.com

While setting up the account. click on the More Settings button and on Outgoing Mail Servers tab, select the My server requires authentication box. Most people will need to use the default option of Use same settings as my incoming server.

Click the Advanced tab, and under Server Port Numbers, enter the following information:

In the Incoming mail (POP3) box, type 995.
In the Outgoing mail (SMTP) box, type 587.
Under both Outgoing mail (SMTP) and Incoming mail (POP3), select the Requires secure connection (SSL) check box. In Outlook 2007, choose Auto; use SSL for Outlook 2003.
Under Delivery, select the Leave a copy of messages on server check box if you want to see your messages when you use Hotmail in a web browser, your mobile phone, or other e-mail programs. By default, Outlook will delete the messages from the Hotmail server when they are downloaded to your computer.

Be sure to set Outlook to leave mail on the server if you also use the web interface to view mail or it will be removed from the server once Outlook downloads it using POP3.