Did you sign up for an Outlook.com email address with Microsoft's new Outlook.com email service, or do you still have a Hotmail account you prefer? If you're an Android user, you have several options for accessing that account on your Android phone or tablet. Microsoft provides an official Hotmail app that works for Outlook.com addresses, too. You can also use Android's included Email app, if you like that instead.
Outlook.com is a worthy contender in the webmail arena. It has come a long way since Google overshadowed it with Gmail's release. While Outlook.com and Hotmail email accounts may feel the most at home on Microsoft's Windows Phone or Windows 8 ecosystems, they work great on Android, too.
Hotmail App
Microsoft offers an official Android app for its email service. You candownload it for free from Google Play. While the app's name is currently "Hotmail," it also works fine with Outlook.com accounts.
After downloading the app, launch it and you'll be prompted to enter your email address and password. You can use an @outlook.com or @live.com email address instead of a Hotmail address.
After configuring a few synchronization settings, you'll see your inbox. The official Hotmail app supports a variety of features:
- Multiple account support: You can configure several Outlook.com or Hotmail addresses and view them all in the same app.
- Contact and calendar event synchronization: If you enable these options while setting up your account, contacts and calendar events from your Outlook.com or Hotmail account will appear in Android's included Contacts and Calendar apps.
- Push email: You'll be notified of new emails as soon as you receive them.
Built-In Email App
Android's included Email app supports Exchange ActiveSync accounts, and each @outlook.com email address also includes full Exchange ActiveSync support. You can use Android's included email app instead of the dedicated Hotmail app, if you prefer. The email app offers all the same features of the Hotmail app above, including calendar event and contact sync, multiple inboxes, and push email.
To set up your new email account, open Android's settings screen and tap Add Account. On older versions of Android, you'll find the Add Account option under Accounts on the Settings screen.
Select the Corporate account type. On older versions of Android, this option may be named Exchange instead of Corporate.
Enter your full email address and password when prompted.
On the Account setup screen, add @outlook.com (or @hotmail.com, if you have a Hotmail email address) to the end of the Domain\Username field.
Change the contents of the Server box to snt-m.hotmail.com
After configuring your synchronization settings, your account is good to go. You can view your email by launching the Email app.
If the corporate account method doesn't work for you, you can also select "Email" instead of "Corporate" while adding an account - Microsoft provides instructions for using POP3 and SMTP instead of Exchange ActiveSync. However, this won't work as well, as POP3 doesn't provide two-way synchronization of read and unread messages.
Unfortunately, Outlook.com does not currently support the standard IMAP protocol. As the Hotmail team said in our question and answer session with them, they're investigating IMAP support, although they feel Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) is a better solution. Click here to read more about the differences between POP and IMAP.
Have you set up an Outlook.com or Hotmail email account on your Android smartphone or tablet? How'd it work for you? Did you run into any snags not mentioned here? Leave a comment and share your experience!
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