I can not recall a day in the recent times when Microsoft was praised unanimously after launching a mainstream product or service. Metro despite being wonderful on touch interfaces had never before showed any real utility on the PC’s. Out of nowhere Microsoft brings up a Metro breathing Hotmail successor Outlook.com and it literally blows even hardcore Gmail fans’ minds. Boy, Microsoft did really learn to turn the tables.
You now are probably one of those having an Outlook.com account already but are probably staring at a pretty empty inbox because all your important emails are still in Gmail. Sensibly, Microsoft have made fetching mails from Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts very easy. This guide will quickly run you through required steps for getting your Gmail and Yahoo emails on outlook with minimal fuss.
Enable POP
Sadly, Outlook supports only POP3 and no IMAP as of now. You are pretty much out of luck if your favorite email service other than these two does not support POP3
For Gmail
Click Settings under the wrench icon and go to “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. Here in the POP download section select either “Enable POP for all mail (even mail that’s already been downloaded)” for importing everything in your Gmail account or “Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on” for getting only new mails to your Outlook account.
For Yahoo
In the top left corner, click options and select Mail options. Now in the POP & Forwarding section make sure “Access Yahoo! Mail via POP” is selected.
Importing in Five simple steps.
Once you login to the new Outlook homepage you will be informed about being able to import email from other accounts. However, we are following here an old school, fool proof method.
- In the top right corner click the wrench icon and then select the “More mail settings” option.
- In the Managing your account section select “Sending/receiving email from other accounts”.
- Select Add an email account in the page.
- Now you will be greeted with the old Hotmail mail import. Just enter your Gmail or Yahoo Mail address and password.
If you are using a customized email address from your organization using Gmail back end, just set the incoming mail server as pop.gmail.com in advanced options.
- If all goes well(and it does in all the scenarios we tried) you will be directed to choose where all the emails from your Gmail or Yahoo account must be saved. Personally, I feel making a dedicated new folder would be slightly better however you can let the mail come directly to your outlook inbox as well.
Just click the link you receive from Outlook.com to your other email account to verify your address.
Sending Emails from Gmail / Yahoo address within Outlook.com
Once again, click “More settings” under the wrench icon in Outlook.com, navigate to Sending/receiving email from other accounts. Here in the second section, just set your other email address as default by selecting “Use as default” option.
Concluding
This simple guide should help you getting all your emails under the Outlook banner. Once you get your inbox really stuffed and you start using Outllook.com, you will begin to really appreciate the thought and effort Redmond has put in it. If you have not given Outlook.com a try yet you are seriously missing a lot. Give it a shot!
