Solved Alternative Hotmail programme When Windows Live Mail Ends In June 2016

[Chris Nicola]

I was sad to receive the following message from Microsoft today by e mail. It appears that in June WLM will no longer be able to synchronise my Hotmail account.

https://support.office.com/en-gb/ar...bbb-88ca-f8ec74f8e8fd?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB

I need to keep my e mail store and contacts. Does anyone know of a free programme that runs on Win 7 and can sync Hotmail/Gmail and can import my contacts and old e mail message store from WLM? I Know Outlook 2016 will work but I was hoping a free programme is available.

Kind Regards
Chris

 

[Callender]

Try free eM Client. It can be installed as "non-default" email client for testing.

Email Client for Outlook.com | eM Client

Note: Personally I don't use outlook.com or hotmail accounts.

I do use it with gmail and one other webmail provider.

 

[Chris Nicola]

Thanks I will check it out.

Kind regards
Chris

 

[FerchogtX]

You can always try:

Mozilla Thunderbird Email Client

It's quite comprehensive, and if you already use any Mozilla software (cough*Firefox*cough) it's quite easy to learn. Supports POP3 and IMAP protocols, can use hardware acceleration for faster rending, You can easily switch accounts for composing emails, and multiple adress books, supports Outlook.com, Gmail, Yahoo and many others (as long as they support above protocols).

I know, I sound like a fanboy, but I use it, and I love it.

You got two options anyway, the best one is the one that suits you

 

[Chris Nicola]

Thanks for the suggestion. Thunderbird sounds like a good option. The problem with Hotmail accounts from June is that they will use a different protocol. Hopefully Other e mail programmes will be able to update their software to be compatible but I don't know if they will be willing to do this. Another problem is that I have a very large e mail store going back some years that I need to keep. I would like to import my e mail store into the new e mail client but I don't know if this is possible. If not then I will always need to keep Windows Live mail installed to be able to access the old e mails.

Kind regards

Chris

 

[FerchogtX]

Thanks for the suggestion. Thunderbird sounds like a good option. The problem with Hotmail accounts from June is that they will use a different protocol. Hopefully Other e mail programmes will be able to update their software to be compatible but I don't know if they will be willing to do this. Another problem is that I have a very large e mail store going back some years that I need to keep. I would like to import my e mail store into the new e mail client but I don't know if this is possible. If not then I will always need to keep Windows Live mail installed to be able to access the old e mails.

Kind regards

Chris

Microsoft is only removing Live/Outlook Syncronization protocol, a special protocol only used by WLM2012, POP3 and IMAP are still up, so all third party clients will work with Outlook.com.
You can use whatever client you want, if it supports POP3 or IMAP, Outlook wil work too.

 

[strollin]

I tried eM Client and it works Ok. IMO, not as good as WLM, but Ok.

It constantly reports errors when syncing with my hotmail account. The errors don't prevent it from working but they are annoying nonetheless.

 

[Brds7t7]

No need to switch programs, it should still work after June with some tweaking

http://www.sevenforums.com/news/395...ll-not-connect-outlook-com-2.html#post3248067

 

[Callender]

I tried eM Client and it works Ok. IMO, not as good as WLM, but Ok.

It constantly reports errors when syncing with my hotmail account. The errors don't prevent it from working but they are annoying nonetheless.

Suggest:

Check Tools> Settings> General

​

Also suggest using IMAP with Hotmail.

The only problem I've ever noticed is sometimes read messages are marked unread. It's a known bug that should be fixed in a forthcoming release.

Also see FAQ's

FAQ | Troubleshooting | Solving Problems | eM Client

POP3 accounts do not keep your items synchronized with the server and are only used to download new data

 

[strollin]

I've played with those sync settings quite a bit, doesn't help.

I haven't tried IMAP yet, eM Client makes some very large claims about being the best and the claim is that their client works with Hotmail (outlook.com). Shouldn't need to setup IMAP.

As I said before, it works and everything seems to sync Ok, only problem is that it keeps popping up an annoying box to report errors that don't seem to make a difference.

 

[Brds7t7]

What problems are you having Strollin? Just the errors popping up?
I'm using IMAP in WLM 2012 now and it's working fine, just had to make a few adjustments. Only thing I have noticed is that it isn't as quick as DeltaSync was. Syncing was almost instantaneous before whereas now there is a little delay when syncing a folder/folders. Also when clicking "Send/Receive All" it probably takes around 10 seconds longer to check all my accounts. But I don't mind that as long as I can keep using the program.
The calendar and contacts sync won't work anymore but I always used my Gmail for that anyway, as I use Android devices.

 

[Callender]

There are advanced settings to enable logging. Maybe try enabling all types of logging and check logs for errors and see if anything obvious shows up.

 

[Chris Nicola]

I did some research and it seems that Thunderbird has the ability to import contacts and e mail messages from WLM. So Thunderbird will be a good alternative to WLM as long as it will still be able to sync messages from Hotmail after the changeover in June.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1046033

I do hope though that it will still be possible to continue using WLM 2012 after some tweaking though nothing is guaranteed.

Kind Regards
Chris

 

[Chris Nicola]

Well after some anticipation Microsoft pulled the plug and Windows Live mail stopped working today and would no longer send or receive messages. After looking at all the options I decided the best free app for my particular needs was Thunderbird and the best paid app was Microsoft Outlook. I was actually offered a free 1 year subscription to Office 2016 and outlook so I would be fully prepared.

I am glad to say though I found a work around to get Windows Live Mail working again without needing to use any other programmes. I followed the advice on this website to configure WLM for IMAP.

Windows Live Mail 2012 end of Outlook support - gHacks Tech News

Since my original post I have switched to Windows 10 and WLM is working fine. The same method should work on Win 7 if anyone wishes to try it.

Here is the procedure.

1 Using your favourite browser log on to your outlook/Hotmail account.
2 Click on the gear symbol at the top right and mail options will open. click on options at the bottom of the list
3 In the options list on the left select mail and click on POP and IMAP accounts. You will see a screenshot like the one attached
4 Select to allow POP and IMAP and select the other options you prefer and click SAVE
5 Now open your WLM and right click your existing Hotmail account and select remove account since it does not work anyway.
6 Under the accounts tab click to add a new account and write a fake account like [email protected] The reason for this is if you write your correct Hotmail account you will not get the options to needed to configure Hotmail for IMAP which you will get with a g mail account. You can overwrite the fake account with your true Hotmail account and password before you click apply/OK.
7 Under the general tab write your true Hotmail /outlook e mail address and name etc.
8 Please see screenshot. Under the servers tab write your server is IMAP
Incoming mail: imap-mail.outlook.com
Outgoing mail: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Write your correct e mail and password
9 Please see screenshot. Under the advanced tab click outgoing mail port 587 and tick SSL box
Incoming mail port 993 and tick SSL box
10 Configure IMAP tab as shown in the screenshot.
11 Click apply /OK and you should be ready to go.

Select to synchronise the account. You can right click the account and choose download all folders or click the send/receive all button. Initially you may have to do some debugging like enter the password again or close and reopen WLM. After a while though all the folders should download and yo should be up and running. I did not try the POP settings as IMAP worked file for me.

I hope this information will be useful to someone.

Kind regards
Chris

Update: On my system the deleted items folder in WLM was not working so I renamed it to Trash as explained in this Tutorial and then it started working properly and is syncronising with the with the Deleted Items Folder on the Outlook server.

https://support.tigertech.net/windows-live-mail-imap

I did not select the Inbox as the root folder as suggested in the tutorial as that did not work for me.

Please compare the two screenshots to see the difference in the naming of the IMAP folders. I hid the redundant Deleted items folder in WLM. Of course computers are different so what worked for me might not work for someone else.

Kind regards
Chris

 

[d4g4m]

Have been using mail 11. Got the warning mail a few months ago. Got the error 3219 pop up today. Switched to imap/smtp sync today using the Ctrl-Shift-T wizard as suggested above. Works fine and I kept the old program mail.

 

[Chris Nicola]

Good to know WLM is working for you. Out of interest does the "Deleted Items" folder in WLM work properly on your system? If not, try renaming it to trash as explained in the update to my previous post.

Kind regards
Chris

 

[d4g4m]

^^^^^
'deleted' is working correctly.
Only thing I've noticed is that checking for mail is much slower than sync with outlook.