After years and years of waiting for Microsoft to enable POP3 (and IMAP4) on Hotmail, they eventually did it. If you have a Hotmail email address then you can finally, thanks to POP3, access and read your email through applications other than the browsers on your computer and your mobile device. This means that you can set Hotmail as one of your email inboxes in the S60 Messaging app. The setup isn’t hard per se, but one issue will be faced on the newer Eseries like the E66, E71 and E63.
The E66 and E71 introduced a newer and easier way to set up email where you simply input your email address and password and according to an intelligent setting system, it will fetch the options itself and finish it, without you needing to fiddle with servers and ports. The problem is that when you input an @hotmail or @live address, it will recognize it and know that neither POP3 nor IMAP4 are available (well, that was the old situation) and instead of adding a new inbox in your Messaging, it will add a new Bookmark in your browser to Hotmail mobile. But since Hotmail now supports POP3, you need to bypass this and be taken to the Email Settings where you enter the details yourself. Here is the detailed guide.
Open the Messaging application on your device, then click Options and Settings, scroll down to Email, then Options, New Mailbox. Now you’ve started the new email setup wizard, clicked Start and Yes, you can Cancel the connection to the server. In the Email Address box that appears, enter any email address that you want, but DON’T use known providers like Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo. You can use a corporate email address, or a made up one, such as at@at.com, so that you’re sure that the wizard won’t recognize it. I know that we’re setting up Hotmail here, but if you use your Hotmail email address, you will end up with the browser bookmark, so bear with me. When you’re asked for a password, you can enter whatever you like or simply your real Hotmail password to speed the real setup later.
You will then be hit by a “Defining Email Settings” progress bar. Wait for it to progress, until you’re asked for your nickname. Keep it as is (same as email address), then you’re told that the Wizard couldn’t find the email settings and that you have to do it yourself. Perfect. An option to choose between POP3/IMAP4 and Mail For Exchange will be presented, select POP3/IMAP4, then OK, then POP3. In the following fields, enter this info:
- Incoming Mail Server: pop3.live.com
- Security: SSL/TLS
- Outgoing Mail Server: smtp.live.com
- Security: SSL/TLS
- Port Number: 25
After you’re done, click OK twice, and you will see the new Email inbox that you set is now added to your other Inboxes in the Email Settings. Scroll to it, click it, and go to Connection Settings. In the Incoming e-mail tab, enter your real username, your real password, you can also change the Mailbox Name to whatever you want, as well as the Access Point. After you’re done, go back and head to the Outgoing e-mail tab, and once again enter your real email address, you real username (same as the email address), password, and choose your preferred Access Point. Head Back twice, and if you want, you can change the User Settings (name, signature) and Retrieval Settings (which days and interval), and voilà!
Now you can go all the way back to the main Messaging view, and see that your new Hotmail inbox is sitting there. Open it, click Connect and you’re good to go. Your email will be downloaded to your device and you can start using Hotmail like it was meant to be used, easily.
