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Hotmail Account

Windows Live Hotmail Plus

Hotmail accounts are Web-based mail accounts. You can use Entourage to send and receive messages from a Hotmail account (see exceptions), rather than connect to the Hotmail Web site with a Web browser.

Mail accounts from Windows Live Hotmail Plus (formerly MSN Hotmail Plus), can be set up in Entourage by using the Account Setup Assistant.

Free Windows Live Hotmail accounts cannot be set up in Entourage. Free Gmail accounts can be set up in Entourage.

Like an IMAP account, messages from a Hotmail account remain on the mail server. When you connect to the Hotmail server, your messages appear in folders in the Folders list, under the name of the Hotmail account.

Note you must set up your original Hotmail account via your browser. This will give you your email address and password.

You have the option to download messages via your browser or Entourage.

Note: Hotmail accounts are inaccessible for Entourage X users after a recent server update on April 1, 2007. This also affects users on IE in Mac OS 9 and older versions of Outlook for PC users.

If you have a free Hotmail account, Entourage may or may not work for you. People who have had free accounts for a long time were grandfathered access with Entourage. Newer subscribers do not have access with Entourage. A Hotmail Plus account would guarantee you access with Entourage 2004.

Wikipedia covers the differences between accounts here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSN_Hotmail

Set up a Windows Live Hotmail Account

Create Hotmail Account

  1. On the Tools menu, click Accounts
  2. Select: Hotmail from the popup
  3. Click New

After you set up your HotMail account, it will show up in your folder window.

Using Hotmail with Entourage

  1. The Mailing List Manager only works with POP accounts, not IMAP or Hotmail. You can do what you want using Rules instead.
  2. Check to be sure you have applied all updates to Office. Often there are fixes for Hotmail.
  3. When you do an advanced rebuild of the database, Entourage removes all of your Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), Hotmail, and News messages from the local cache. Download these messages again from the server, and then reset your folder column preferences for these message folders. Re-enter your settings for your news and mail schedules, and then update any rules that copy or move messages into IMAP or Hotmail folders. Note that pictures that were attached to contacts in your Address Book are lost.
  4. Can't access your Hotmail account? See the Error 1500 for possible solutions. For other errors, check the Error Page.
  5. If you receive this error, it indicates you are trying to access with a free account. You will need to get a paid account:
    HTTP error: Access to the resource is forbidden.
    explanation: The Windows Live Hotmail folder could not be received

Frequently Asked Questions: Hotmail

  1. Can't download Hotmail account
  2. Get the contents of my local Entourage Hotmail folders to match the content of the folders on the web
  3. Some messages in Entourage deleted items folder will not delete.
  4. Will my contacts in my Hotmail account automatically sync with Entourage?

1) I can't download my Hotmail account. What do I do?

First make sure you are using the latest version of Entourage.

If you have an old Hotmail account with a short password, you will not be able to access. Nowadays, new Hotmail accounts require passwords with 8 characters and the Entourage Hotmail access gadget is set accordingly. So, if you have a short pass, look up your account in a regular browser and change it.

April 6, 2007 If you are an Entourage X user and are having problems with your Hotmail account here is the reply I received from Hotmail support:

We traced the issue back to a security-related change on the Hotmail servers, which unfortunately affects all Hotmail customers and is too critical to revert.

Entourage X users who do not upgrade to Entourage 2004 can try the following workarounds:

Receiving Mail: Move any messages in the Outbox to Drafts. Message retrieval works in some cases if no messages need to be sent.

Sending Mail: Send messages via a non-Hotmail account.

Sorry I don't have better news.

2) Is there a way to get the contents of my local Entourage Hotmail folders to match the content of the folders on the web?

Theoretically, they should be the same, although they get the data through a different path (DAV for Entourage vs. web browser). Try emptying the cache of your Hotmail account in Entourage. Control- or right-click on your Hotmail account icon in the folder list and select "Empty Cache". Then you'll need to Refresh the message list for that folder.

3) Why is Entourage holding onto random deleted messages that hotmail has already deleted from the server?

What you see is not an actual message on the Hotmail server, but rather an item that got stuck in Entourage's cache. Right-click/ctrl-click the Hotmail icon in the folder pane and select "Empty Cache" from the contextual menu. This will force Entourage to re-download all the messages from the server and should delete any cached messages.

Another option provided by a user:

I use Entourage as my mail software and use MSN mail. I've had about 6 emails in my Deleted MSN Folder on Entourage but nothing in my Deleted Hotmail Folder. I could actually open these emails and read them. I created a temp folder in my MSN Entourtage account. I then moved these pesky emails to the temp folder, closed Entourage and went to Hotmail. In Hotmail, I could see the temp folder, but it was empty! I then deleted the temp folder from Hotmail, closed Hotmail and re- opened Entourage. In Entourage, the temp folder was gone, along with the emails!

4) I've loaded up Entourage for the first time and have the following question: Will my contacts in my Hotmail account automatically sync with Entourage, or will I have to do an import?

No, Entourage doesn't offer that feature. If you have a Windows machine with Outlook Express, you can download your Hotmail address book there and then export it. Then, you can use Paul Berkowitz's "Export-Import Entourage" script package to import the data into Entourage.