In an earlier post, I mentioned that Hotmail was now able to be configured in the iPhone’s Mail application, using POP3 access, directly to the MSN Live Hotmail service. No 3rd party tools required. No Hotmail Plus required.
After adding my Hotmail account to my iPhone, I dug into the settings to find out what the server details are. These should then be able to be used with any POP client:
Incoming Server
Server: pop3.live.com
Username: user@hotmail.com
Password: your hotmail password
Use SSL, port 995
If the option is available, ensure ‘delete messages from server’ is disabled.
Outgoing Server
Server: smtp.live.com
Username: user@hotmail.com
Password: your hotmail password
Use SSL, port 587
Finally, Microsoft have opened up free POP access to Hotmail users. No 3rd party tools required. It’s come too late for me, as the lack of POP access (free or paid) to my Hotmail account forced me over to GMail some time ago, and I’ve never looked back. However, my Hotmail account is still active, so I gave it a try out of curiosity.
Adding your account on the iPhone is simple enough – Just go into your email settings, add a new account of type ‘other’, fill in your credentials and the POP server settings will be configured automatically.
Maybe I’ve just become used to GMail’s IMAP access, but the Hotmail offering, whilst welcome, is a bit lacking. For example, you only get your main Inbox, so any folders you have set up are inaccessible. Also, it’s painfully slow, even over O2′s 3G. I haven’t tried it on WiFi yet so your mileage may vary.
Of course, this should work with any POP client, and the lack of folder support may be an iPhone limitation. However, I’ve not experienced this before with other POP accounts. I’ll be checking it later on my desktop client to see how it fares there.
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