Previously I’ve written a guide on how to add your Hotmail account to Microsoft Outlook. Before doing that, you’ll need to subscribe for the MSN Hotmail Plus which is now known as Windows Live Hotmail Plus. If you are using the FREE basic Windows Live Hotmail account, you’ll only get an error message saying “Access to Hotmail via Outlook and Outlook Express now requires a subscription. Please sign up at http://join.msn.com/general/Email“.

For people who have Microsoft Outlook 2003 or Outlook 2007, Microsoft has released a free utility for Microsoft Outlook called “Microsoft Office Outlook Connector” that allows you to download email from your Windows Live Hotmail to local Microsoft Outlook WITHOUT Windows Live Hotmail Plus subscription.

Please take note that Microsoft Office Outlook Connector only works with Microsoft Outlook 2003 and 2007 only. Earlier version of Microsoft Outlook and also Outlook Express won’t work.


Using Windows Live Hotmail with Microsoft Outlook can be much powerful because it uses Junk Mail filter, Rules Wizard and other features in Outlook. Download, installing and running Microsoft Office Outlook Connector is very easy.

1. Download Microsoft Office Outlook Connector and install.

2. Run Microsoft Outlook and you’ll need to enter your Hotmail email address, password and name that you want to appear in the receiver’s inbox.

3. You’ll notice that on the left pane where all your mail folders are, a new folder with your hotmail email address will appear. Simply click on Send/Receive button to start downloading all your emails from Hotmail to Outlook.

If you have multiple Hotmail account, you can continue adding them to Outlook by going to Outlook Connector from menu bar, and select Add a New Account. It’s so much easier maintaining multiple Hotmail accounts now!

There are also free third party utilities such as HotPOP3 which acts as a proxy between an HTTPMail server (MSN Hotmail) but I’d prefer to use Microsoft utilities on Microsoft products.