There’s lots of cool stuff in the new Hotmail, and I got to see it with my own eyes already! Last week I attended a special Windows Live (lunch) session at Microsoft headquarters here in the Netherlands. Dharmesh Mehta (Harrison’s new boss) demonstrated Messenger and the new Hotmail.

He showed all the stuff Kip told you about and more…let me tell you about the stuff I am most excited about, besides the ones Kip already explained.

Sweep

No matter if you are a “filer” or a “piler”, now you can organize your inbox with ease. Want to get rid of all those old newsletters at once, or file them into a separate folder (become an auto-filer)? You can do so with Sweep. It works not only for your hotmail account but also for all the imported accounts like your Gmail. It’s as easy as 1,2,3

1. Select mail
2. Click sweep and select Move All from or Delete All from
  
Let’s take move all from as example.
3. Click Move all/Delete All button and you’re done!
 
If you leave a checkmark to do so for future messages this will be done automatically for you in the future. No more setting up e-mail filters! Can’t wait to give this one a go!

One-Click Filters

A handy feature that we know from the desktop client Windows Live Mail, are One-Click filters. We call them Quick views in the desktop client. The new Hotmail allows you to filter them out to unread mails, mail from your contacts or from social networks. The last one is not available in the desktop client, but who knows maybe it will be when we get a Wave 4 version of that.

P.S.: not to complicate things: there’s Quick Views in the new Hotmail too. These are situated at the left and clicking them shows you all mails containing photos, documents, shipping updates etc. It is also a fast way to get to your flagged mails.

Conversation View

Ever get lost in an email conversation? Happens easily if one cuts out the previous message, the conversation is with multiple people and/or lots of emails get received in between. The new Hotmail has a solution for that too: Conversation View. Now you may know Conversation View from Gmail, but this is slightly different: you can turn it on and off! In the new Hotmail you see the conversation history at the bottom of the email.
 

View all from sender

Now I hear you say “Conversation View is nice an all but what about if you want to see all mail you received from one sender?” That can be done too, just right click their name in the email list and select “Find e-mail.”

Pretty exciting features eh, I can’t wait to get my hands on the new Hotmail. How about you?

Did you abandon Hotmail before for Gmail? Were we able to convince you now that the new Hotmail is better than Gmail? Let’s have a look at the Hotmail Competitive Comparison chat, which you can find at www.hotmailpreview.com. Ok, both have messaging and threaded conversations, with the difference that you can turn threaded conversations off in the new Hotmail. A huge difference can be found in the attachment limits, the new Hotmail allows you to attach up to 10 GB (50 MB each), whereas Gmail won’t let you go above 25 MB. I think the combination of the new features of Hotmail Wave 4 with this and the unlimited storage, makes the new Hotmail unbeatable! If you abandoned it before, give it a go again. Import your Gmail, and other POP enabled accounts into Hotmail and have it all conveniently in one place!

The “New” Hotmail reinvented to be the most efficient email service for busy people

Edit: replaced embedded video with step-by-step guide for Sweep. Embedding didn’t work out as should. For videos check out this library.