Question :
I’ve always though it was extremely annoying that Microsoft only allowed POP eMail for Hotmail.com for MacOSX, but I kept my Hotmail-account alive for al these years since I actually liked it, even after I switched to Mac…
Recently I heard that Microsoft is finally allowing IMAP access to Hotmail.com eMail, but I can’t figure out how to set it up on my Mac…
Can you please help ?
Answer :
Yes, you’re correct : IMAP eMail has finally come to Hotmail.com, Live.com and Outlook.com eMail.
Setting it up in MacOSX is not as straight forward as one might have hoped however…
The tricky part is that MacOSX will automatically set-up a POP-account if you are setting up a new account in Mail.app using a Hotmail.com, Live.com or Outlook.com eMail-address.
note : instructions for setting-up Hotmail/Live/Outlook-eMail on iPhone/iPad can be found here.
That being said…
If you follow these steps, you will be able to succeed anyway :
( if you are on OSX 10.9 Mavericks, read this first )
1- in OSX Mail.app, go to Preferences, then to Accounts and (if you have one) select your current POP-setup for Hotmail/Live/Outlook from the list, then go to the Account Information tab, and there un-check the “Enable this account” option
2- then use the Plus-button (bottom left) to add a new account
3- in the pulldown-window “Add Account” that appears, fill in your Full Name, type a fake eMail address ( e.g. nobody@blabla.com ) and leave the Password blank, then click on Create
4- in the next window, set the Account Type to “Exchange IMAP” (only if you don’t have that option choose “IMAP”) and use the following info, depending on what eMail-address you have :
for Hotmail.com-eMail, use :
Description : Hotmail IMAP ( or if you perfer your eMail-address, make sure to add “IMAP” or something like that to it, else it will conflict with your previously set-up Hotmail POP )
Incoming Mail Server : imap-mail.outlook.com [ will automatically select Port 993 ]
User Name : username@hotmail.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Hotmail-password ]
Outlook Web Access Server : m.hotmail.com
for Live.com-eMail, use :
Description : Live.com IMAP ( or if you perfer your eMail-address, make sure to add “IMAP” or something like that to it, else it will conflict with your previously set-up Live.com POP )
Incoming Mail Server : imap-mail.outlook.com [ will automatically select Port 993 ]
User Name : username@live.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Live.com-password ]
Outlook Web Access Server : m.live.com
for Outlook.com-eMail, use :
Description : Outlook IMAP ( or if you perfer your eMail-address, make sure to add “IMAP” or something like that to it, else it will conflict with your previously set-up Live.com POP )
Incoming Mail Server : imap-mail.outlook.com [ will automatically select Port 993 ]
User Name : username@outlook.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Outlook.com-password ]
Outlook Web Access Server : m.outlook.com
5- then click “Continue”, and if you get an error-message, just click “Continue” again
6- in the next window put a check-mark in front of “Use SSL”, set Authentication to “Password” and click “Continue” again
7- in the next window, use these settings :
for Hotmail.com-eMail, use :
Description : Hotmail SMTP ( or anything you like )
Outgoing Mail Server : smtp.live.com [ will automatically select Port 25 or Port 465 ]
you can check “Use only this server”, but it’s not obligatory
do check “Use Authentication”
User Name : username@hotmail.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Hotmail.com-password ]
for Live.com-eMail, use :
Description : Live.com SMTP ( or anything you like )
Outgoing Mail Server : smtp.live.com [ will automatically select Port 25 or Port 465 ]
you can check “Use only this server”, but it’s not obligatory
do check “Use Authentication”
User Name : username@live.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Live.com-password ]
for Outlook.com-eMail, use :
Description : Outlook SMTP ( or anything you like )
Outgoing Mail Server : smtp-mail.outlook.com [ will automatically select Port 587 ]
you can check “Use only this server, but it’s not obligatory
do check “Use Authentication”
User Name : username@outlook.com [ replace “username” by your own username ]
Password : ••••• [ your Outlook.com-password ]
8- then click “Continue” and if you get an error message, just click “Continue” again
9- in the next window, put a check-mark at “Use SSL”, select Authentication “Password” ( or “External (TSL client Certificate)” if you happen to have that ), and click “Continue”
10- in the next window, put a check-mark at “Take account online” and click on “Create”
11- then, back in Mail.app’s Prefecences, under Accounts, select your newly created eMail-account and click on the “Account Information”-tab and re-type your correct eMail-address in “Email Address:” (replacing the nobody@blabla.com you had originally entered) and check if all settings are as they need to be according to the above
12- then exit the Mail.app Prefecences (click the red button upper left) and click “Save” when the “Save changes” pulldown window appears
13- now, back in Mail.app itself (if you do not see the normal Mail window, go to File –> New Viewer Window), you will see the new Hotmail/Live/Outlook account has appeared, and it is looking for your old & new eMails on the Hotmail/Live/Outlook-mail servers
…most people will have lots of old eMails to import, so this might take some time (don’t be surprised if this takes 15, 20 or maybe even 30 minutes…)
14- if the import of the old & new eMails from the Hotmail/Live/Outlook-mail servers is complete, they will appear in the Inbox window and you’re done…
Congratulations !
…if you do not see your old & new eMails appearing, but you do see an “Unread eMails”-number next to the name of the Hotmail/Live/Outlook-inbox in the listing on the left, you have run into a bug in Mail.app that was only recently solved in OSX 10.8.5
to manually solve this problem, quit Mail.app, open Disk Utility (from the Applications –> Utilities folder), run “Repair Disk Permissions” on your Hard Drive’s main partition and when that’s finished, re-open Mail.app and all should be solved
Enjoy !
MacManus.nl 
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Only partially solved the issue for me. Hotmail on the web registers if a message is read in OSX Mail for me (hence the IMAP settings outlined here partially work), but when I delete messages in OSX Mail then it does not get deleted on the Hotmail server (which you can see on Hotmail on the web). Have tried to mess with the settings, but no luck.
@Dean Clark :
Sorry to hear it doesn’t work for you (yet) as you had expected…
I do not have this set-up at this moment, so I would have to recreate your situation here to try and recreate your problem, so I have any chance on giving you an in-depth answer on this…
Which version of OSX are you using ?
Which version of Mail.app are you using ?
Are you using a Hotmail.com, a Live.com or an Outlook.com eMail-account ? (it seems like you’re using Hotmail.com, but still…)
Have you set-up everything exactly to-the-letter as lined-out in my instructions ?
…if not : what have you got set-up differently ? and why ?
Good Luck !
😉
hotmail.com is my favorite
I would like to keep that account, thank for your help
@yvonne van eyk :
happy to have helped you – enjoy 😉
Pingback: fixed : set IMAP eMail for Hotmail.com, Live.com and Outlook.com in OSX Mavericks Mail.app | MacManus.nl
make sure to type the outgoing mail address correctly, for hotmail it is: smtp.live.com
@Hossam Shoman :
That’s right, this may seem odd, but Microsoft seems to have disabled the original Hotmail.com-SMPT, so you’ll have to use another SMTP-server for sending your eMail…
Technically, you could probably use any SMTP-server, but to keep things ‘Microsoft’ I would suggest anyone to use the Live.com-SMTP
😉
Hi MacManus
Thanks for your detailed instructions, but it does not solve my problem.
I have a MacBook Pro with OS X 10.8.5 and am using Mail app 6.6 (1510).
I have an outlook account for years now with my mail address username@hotmail.com.
The first time i used POP3 for my account and all mails were marked as unread, no sync from iPhone. I found your help and got the IMAP account, but my Inbox stays empty all the time.
I tried it with IMAP and with IMAP exchange, i tried it with @hotmail.com and and created an alias @outlook.com (using safari to login outlook.com) and tried with this one as well.
I can send e-mails, but there are none in my inbox and as well they dont appear there when i send one to my own address. The folders “junk” and “draft” appear on the left side and show the e-mails in those folder, but nothing at all in inbox.
The inbox only sync when i am using pop3.
Is it correct in your description that i have to use for outgoing mails “smtp.live.com” if i have a hotmail account?
do you have any idea what i could be doing wrong?
thanks!
andi
@Andi Eckmann :
Sorry to hear this doesn’t work for you (yet)
I’m not sure about your question though… it appears that you have two separate issues :
one is with Hotmail IMAP in Apple Mail.app in OSX 10.8,
info on setting that up can be found here
the other one is with Hotmail IMAP on iPhone,
info on setting that up can be found here
as always : follow the directions as outlined to the letter ! do not try to shortcut the install procedure by skipping steps or just filling in the server-addresses, that will get you undesired outcomes…
and yes, you are correct : even for a Hotmail-eMail address, the Live.com-SMTP should be used for outgoing eMail (see previous comments for more info on this)
hope this helps !
Good Luck !
I have the same issue – As of 4PM yesterday (March 13 2014) my IMAP connection gave up the ghost on two separate accounts. No reason for the change, I am assuming it is some kind of bug but all settings are correct. As a side note I had microsoft look at the problem as it happens on outlook in office. There seems to be no support for IMAP on mac – even the tech heads at microsoft couldn’t figure it out and asked me to go back to using POP!
@Rob Houghton :
Thanks for the info.
I’ve not seen other reports on this yet, but it might still be a temporary server error on Microsoft’s side.
From what you’re writing, I assume you are using MS Outlook for Mac as your (only) eMail-client – is that correct ?
If that’s the case, what you could do is see if you can still set up the IMAP-account in OSX’s built-in Mail.app.
If you can get that to work properly, you can rest assured that it’s an (Outlook) software problem that will be fixed in due time.
Good Luck !
😉
Hi MacManus
Thanks for your detailed instructions, but it does not solve my problem.
I have maverick and hotmail account work but no e-mail are sync to my inbox (other folders do)
Thanks
@Eduardo :
Thanks for your feedback !
Sorry to hear it doesn’t work as expected yet…
Other reports seem to indicate that there has been some IMAP-connection outage on Hotmail lately…
I can’t tell if that’s been resolved yet. I hope (and assume) Microsoft will fix this soon.
That might not be relevant in your case however. To answer your question, I need better understanding of the problems you are encountering. Can you please be more specific regarding the folders that do and do not sync ? And can you indicate how you found this out ? And can you tell what other ways or devices you use to connect to Hotmail, apart from OSX 10.9’s version of Mail.app ?
Thanks !
😉
Hi MacManus,
It used to work with Lion same Macbook Pro but when I upgrade it to Maverick and setup the my Hotmail account it just did not bring the emails into the inbox, it works just fine in my other devices (Iphone, Ipad), the sent items and inbox (root) folders my my laptop are the only ones that do not allow me to see the emails (I assume they have not been downloaded) as other personal folders that I have created work just fine.
It has been like this since January.
Hope this point you in the right direction and help me to fix it.
Thanks!
@Eduardo :
If what’s missing is just the old eMails from before the upgrade to Mavericks, it seems like something went wrong during the upgrade from Mail.app 5 (Lion-verson) to Mail.app 7 (Mavericks), which might have to do with the fact that you skipped version 6 (MountainLion-version) and you are using Hotmail.
In that case, your best option is to get your old eMails back from a TimeMachine-backup (or a similar backup).
If what’s missing is everything in your inbox, it might be that you have IMAP-Hotmail setup on your Mac, and POP-Hotmail on one of your other devices.
In that case, all new eMail will be deleted from the inbox on the server once it is fetched by the device running POP-Hotmail.
(which is the main reason to use IMAP instead of POP in the first place)
So, make sure you have set up IMAP-hotmail on all devices that access your Hotmail.
Please note that you might even have run into both these issues at the same time.
If none of the above is any solution to your problems, I expect there to be info missing from what you’re telling.
(Though you might not even know what info is missing, since you haven’t yet recognised it as a problem that might have to do with this.)
Please report back if you find the solution.
Good Luck !
hello
well actually I’ve done everything use said but still didn’t work and i need this hotmail to be work stronglyyyy
@asmaa :
Sorry to hear it doesn’t work for you yet.
What exactly isn’t working ?
Can you give more details please ?
Here are just a few suggestions, but since your problems are unspecified, the solutions could be anything :
1- you might be experiencing quirky behavior of Hotmail.com, which has recently happend to others, but is expected to be resolved by Microsoft in due time
2- you have to make sure that none of your devices (Mac/iPhone/iPad/PC/smartphone/etc.) is still connecting to the Hotmail mail-servers using POP instead of IMAP, as that will cause various problems
3- make sure that you follow the instruction to the letter, as, even though things might look straightforward, some things are not (e.g. even on a Hotmail-account, Live.com and/or Outlook.com servers may be needed for things to work)
Good Luck !
😉
Hello MacManus , i hope everything is alright ..i was wanna ask you about my iPhone this time not the macbook ,….its personal hot spot option after i had updated my iPhone to IOS 8.2 doesn’t exist is there is any specific reason for such a case or what please reply whenever u check this ….thanx so much
@asmaashehataaaaaaaa :
I’m not entirely sure what your question is, but I think this will be valuable info for you :
in iOS8 and iOS8.2 there should still be an option to use Personal Hotspot available in the Settings
if you don’t see the option to do so available any longer, you have probably also had a Carrier Settings update also next to the iOS8 upgrade…
some (until recently most) mobile/GSM-providers haven’t been keen on the Personal Hotspot option available in iOS, and have tried to block it on their network. Their main option to block it iPhones is to hide the option from view (and thereby from use altogether) via their Carrier Settings…
that might just be what happened in your case…
sorry…
i’d really like to thank youu soooooooooo much u really deserve everything nice to happen to you …..you really helped me a lott :DDDDD
@asmaa :
Thanks for the compliment !
enjoy !
😉
Hi, i want to add my Live.com email to Microsoft Outlook 2011 Mac, but as Exchange email because I want all of my email, calendar and contacts be syncronized as the same time. could you please help me?
or anyone could help me please to find out the Live.com server address. i tried many time but it’s not possible…
i can add it by using imap-mail.outlook.com and smtp-mail.outook.com but the problem is that just my emails will be syncs.
thanks
@Tohid :
I’m sorry to inform you that I’m not familiar with Outlook for Mac.
But still, I’ve done some googling for you, to see if I could come up with an answer anyway…
From what I’m reading, I would suggest the problem could be one of these :
1- Outlook 2011 for Mac can’t properly setup connections to Exchange accounts automatically, so you will have to do all configuration yourself
2- if you get an error while setting up an Exchange account in Outlook for Mac 2011, chances are the Autodiscover CNAME record is incorrect or absent ; to resolve this, follow these instructions : http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2459968
3- if you are connecting to a business or university Exchange server, consult your IT-staff or your local setup guide (if neither can help you, find a guide for a similar institution online)
If your problem is neither of the above, I can only suggest the official Microsoft guide on setting up Outlook 2011 for Mac :
http://office.microsoft.com/en-001/office-online-help/set-up-email-in-outlook-for-mac-2011-HA102823162.aspx
Good Luck !
😉
I need help my ex boyfriend is tracking my email how can I delete that
@mayra :
Sorry to hear about this.
I don’t think I can really help you on this.
Go to your local Apple Store and ask them for help.
My suggestions would be :
1- change the password of your eMail-account
2- make sure you enable 2-step verification on your eMail-account
3- get a new eMail-address
4- if you can prove your claim, press charges against your ex at your local police department
5- get off the internet and completely reinstall all your devices using new passwords
6- get a private detective (if you can afford one) to investigate this
…sorry, but I can’t help you any further on this
Good Luck !
Don’t know if you’re even around anymore to answer questions but a few days ago my husband’s iMac stopped receiving emails. No changes were made in settings. It started receiving email a few hours later. Today both my husband and I stopped receiving emails and we have different email addresses. We both use msn.com as the ending to our email but to access the email we have to go to http://www.hotmail.com No emails all day long and again no changes were made to the settings. What is going on? This has been my husband’s business email address for years and it would be financially disastrous for him to not be able to receive emails at his address. I’ve gone online and it seems all the imap settings are correct
Settings on our MacBooks:
INCOMING
Account Type: IMAP
Server hostname: imap-mail-outlook.com
Server port: 993
Authentication: Password
SSL/TLS: Yes
OUTGOING:
Server hostname: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Server port: 587
Authentication: Password
SSL/TLS: Yes
Are all these settings correct?
@YoJoLo :
Sorry to hear this – and sorry for my late reply.
If you are setting up Hotmail, MSN or Live.com eMail through IMAP on OSX Mail.app, please follow the procedure as outlined in the original post, as different ways of trying to get the same settings in Mail.app have turned out not to work…
That being said, the final settings that should work are :
Incoming Server settings visible in Mail –> Preferences –> Accounts –> [your Hotmail account] –> Account Information
Account Type: IMAP
Incoming Mail Server: imap-mail.outlook.com {NOTE : you had “imap-mail-outlook.com” – was that a typo ?}
Incoming Server settings visible in Mail –> Preferences –> Accounts –> [your Hotmail account] –> Advanced
IMAP Path Prefix: {nothing}
Port: 993
Use SSL: check
Authentication: Password
Allow insecure authentication: uncheck
Use IDLE command if the server supports it: check
Outgoing Server settings visible in Mail –> Preferences –> Accounts –> [your Hotmail account] –> Account Information –> Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): –> Edit SMTP Server List –> [Description] –> Account Information :
Server Name: smtp-mail.outlook.com
TLS Certificate: None
Outgoing Server settings visible in Mail –> Preferences –> Accounts –> [your Hotmail account] –> Account Information –> Outgoing Mail Server (SMTP): –> Edit SMTP Server List –> [Description] –> Advanced :
Automatically detect and maintain account settings: check
Port: 587
Use SSL: check
Authentication: Password
Allow insecure authentication: uncheck
User Name: {your Hotmail-eMail-address}
Password: {your Hotmail-password}
…if you get those set in Mail.app it should work…
Good Luck 😉