Users for years have been lamenting the fact that Hotmail was only available as an http protocol, and did not offer POP access. Well that's now changed for Hotmail Plus users, and plans are in the works for making POP access available to all Hotmail users for free, according to a blog post by Lead Program Manager for Hotmail Omar Shahine.
starting this week Hotmail Plus users ($19.95 a year) will be able to use POP access from any device. In the interest of transparency though I want to be clear that we have plans to offer POP to all users (all premium and free) but we aren't ready to do that yet. I can't comment on a timeframe for when free users will get POP, but we hope to do so within the next 12 months.
If you do take advantage of this premium feature and sign up for Hotmail plus you'll also get an ad-free experience, more storage, larger attachment support, and a non expiring account.
Our POP service requires that you use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) with the POP and SMTP connection and use SMTP authentication. This is to ensure that your email address and password are not subject to tampering. The settings are the following:
- POP: pop3.live.com (port 995)
- SMTP: smtp.live.com (port 25)
- Note: make sure you check the box that indicates that your outgoing server requires authentication (in most mail clients this is not checked by default).
- Username: your full email address
- Password: your Windows Live ID password
This means that a Hotmail Plus account will now allow users of email clients such as Eudora, Thunderbird, and Apple Mail, as well as most mobile devices including the Apple iPhone, will now be able to access their Hotmail accounts.
Shahine notes that at this time the change pertains to Hotmail Plus accounts only, and not MSN Premium accounts.