Older readers know the days of Hotmail, Microsoft’s free e-mail offering that was until ten years ago the undisputed market leader at the start of the new millennium.
The name of Hotmail has dissolved; Microsoft decided to incorporate Hotmail into the Outlook family in 2013 and started marketing and developing a new product Outlook.
That is, while Outlook’s market share is significantly larger than Hotmail’s, the fact was that Hotmail penetrated deep enough as a brand that for tens of millions of mail users, the name is and will forever be Hotmail.
In this article, I’ll use them interchangeably but if you prefer, just know that I’m referring to forwarding messages, I will explain how you can move your previous Hotmail messages to Gmail and how you can forward new ones.
How to switch from Hotmail to Gmail
Outlook has really been defeated by Gmail in the e-mail service provision service. with more than 1. 5 billion steady users while on the other hand the competitor, Microsoft grew by only 400 million users maximum.
However, there are no drastic differences between the two systems; both systems are functional and have similar levels of security, features, and user-friendly touch.
However, far more people just like the appearance of Gmail better than Hotmail and the general tone of it all.
Luckily, it doesn’t take much changing for one from the other and you can even have the previous account up even while using the new one.
The option of forwarding all the emails lets the auto-forwarding of the emails sent in Hotmail directly to Gmail before migration.
I want you to forward all the Hotmail emails to my Gmail
The first process that needs to be undertaken in order to implement the migration process is the creation of e-mail forwarding that will send e-mails from Outlook to your Gmail account.
This is quite an easy process that asks the Outlook email server to forward all the emails received to your Gmail account along with a copy of the same. It is free of charge, easy to install and can execute itself for as long as one wants to stop it.
- Open your browser and go to the main login section for the Hotmail account.
- Click on the down arrow beside your name on the top right corner and then select View All Outlook Settings.
- Go to the Mail tab, then to the Forwarding link.
- Choose the Enable Forwarding option and type your Gmail address.
- Select the Keep a copy of forwarded messages check box this way the Hotmail ID will always have all the emails.
- Close the Settings dialog.
Consequently, beginning this week all incoming Hotmail/Outlook emails will be automatically copied to your Gmail mailbox.
Transfer Hotmail account to Gmail
The final move, which comes with the change is to transfer all your existing Hotmail emails to Gmail. After it’s accomplished you’ll be able to transfer all your folders and your emails from Hotmail/Outlook to Gmail with no problems.
The first step involved cleaning up the Hotmail by deleting all the spam and junk mail that it contains.
Hence, you may wish to do pass through your email folders and delete whatever comes in your mind that you do not need anymore.
You can save a little time on this task by following this link to this article I wrote for TechJunkie on how to automatically delete Hotmail junk mail.
To actually migrate the information over:
- Login to Gmail and find the gear-shaped icon to click on it to navigate to settings.
- Go to the Account and Import field.
- Go for it and choose the Import Mail and Contacts option.
- Enter the Hotmail account into the popup box and follow the steps of the wizard.
The wizard takes you through the process of account import and what to do and what not to do while importing.
It is a few steps but will import your Hotmail to Gmail in under an hour or so depending on the traffic on the servers.
Composing and viewing Hotmail in Gmail
If you do not wish to switch over to Hotmail permanently, then it is also possible that you can send Hotmail emails from your Gmail only.
It is a nice tool which has been in existence for some time now and can be applied to almost any e-mail address.
What this means is you can check your Hotmail in your Gmail and vice versa and you only need to sign in one account to see the other.
- Open Gmail and go to the gear icon on the top right side of the page to click on it to open Settings.
- To export the file, go to selecting the second tab, Accounts and Import.
- After Outlook starts, choose to Check Email from Other Accounts and, next to it, click Add a Mail Account.
- Input Hotmail address details and password: If you are prompted to enter server details then put in pop3 for both the incoming and outgoing mail server. live. com as POP server, 995 as a port and always use SSL when getting the mails.
- Make sure that the setting called Leave a copy of retrieved email on the server is checked.
- Select Add Account.
- Choose Yes I want to be able to send mail as… and Next Step.
- Type the send from address and Next Step.
- Click on Send Verification to go to Gmail and then get a one-time code from Hotmail.
- Sign in to Hotmail, get the code and insert it in this box. Select Verify.
After the two accounts were merged, it is possible to use a Hotmail account to send emails by creating a new email and in the Options section choosing the From address list.
Every person receiving the email will see your Hotmail address in the From section even though it was done with Gmail. It relies on Hotmail as a relay making life just a little bit easier.
It is worth mentioning that this tutorial only explains how to forward emails from Hotmail to Gmail. Almost all email addresses can be imported into Gmail in a similar manner.
Unfortunately, I do not believe that any company in its right mind would happily settle for a free email or an ISP-provided email, it will most likely work but you will enter specific email server settings into Gmail to make it 100%.
