How to Setup Hotmail IMAP in Android

If you want to add your Hotmail account in your Android smart phone, you can use the POP option. But, you can’t sync your email when you use POP. The other option is to use IMAP, but unfortunately not supported by Hotmail.

Luckily, there is another option that you can use which is the Exchange account. To add it, follow the steps below:-

1. Open the App drawer and select Email.

2. If you have an existing email account, you see the screen below. If you don’t have an account, skip to step 4. Click on the Menu button on the phone to bring up the menu. Then select Account.

3. In the Account screen, click on the Menu button again and select Add Account.

4. You’ll see this screen if this is the first email account that you are adding. Select MS Exchange.

5. Fill in your Hotmail address and also the password. Then select Next. Check the “Send email from this account by default” if you want to send email using this email address.

6. In the next screen, fill in your Hotmail address in the domain\username field. Key in the password, and add the Hotmail server. The server is m.hotmail.com. Check the “Use Secure Connection (SSL)” option. Then select Next.

7. The system will try to connect to the email server. This will take a while.

8. Select the options that you want. The “Amount to synchronize” option is for you to select the amount of emails to synchronize. “Three days” option means it will only download the emails from last 3 days.

9. Give the new account a name, and you are done!

Some stuff that you need to take note of:
1. If you are not seeing any email, it is most likely because the emails are older than the period that you set in the “Amount to synchronize” option. (e.g. If the last email is 5 days ago and your option to synchronize is 3 days, you won’t see any email)
2. I’m using LG Optimus One (P500) and the screen might differ from yours.

About HMMaster

I'm just an IT guy working in the IT world. I love to explore new things and the web is the best way to explore!
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73 Responses to How to Setup Hotmail IMAP in Android

  1. Lindsay says:

    a quick note to say thank you so much for posting in such detail- you really helped me out alot with this particular issue. I really appreciate it !!

  2. Manas says:

    plz help me.
    my phn is not connecting as it is sending response to server for plus account.

  3. Sérgio says:

    Let me express my gratitude, as I’ve been loking for it, for weeks and never found it ’till now. Thank you so much!

  4. Sérgio says:

    Hi Manas,

    First off all you need to clear every windows live/hotmail email account, to begin a setting up a new one. On the server settings screen, you need to clear domain name and write email adress completly without the defalut “\” in the begining. after that clear server and write m.hotmail.com. I you do so it won’t set up your hotmail accouunt as “plus”.
    It worked flawlessly for me. ‘Hope it helps!

  5. Grateful says:

    Thanks a lot for the simple to follow and very detailed information with the screenshots! I had been searching and doing this for a couple of hours now and getting frustrated. Keep up the good work!!

  6. Victor Diaz says:

    Muchas gracias. Preciso y directo. Muy buena guia. Desde la web de Windows Live tambien la pueden observar:

    http://windowslivehelp.com/solution.aspx?solutionid=f49bdf1f-8bb9-47e4-9633-e3a6ba15e2f8

    pero de lejos me quedo con ésta, las imágenes ayudan más. Lo comprobé en mi humilde Ideos de Google (Android 2.1)

  7. Nguyen says:

    I set up my live.com email account exactly like this on LG G2x running android 2.3 (CM7). Everything works except email content displayed in plain text rather than HTML. My get around solution is set up that same account with pop3 settings to view it only. An

  8. Medisoft says:

    You absolutely ROCK for having this procedure! I cannot tell you how much I’ve searched and found other wrong, outdated procedures that did not work. Thank you!

    And as just an FYI, in step 6, it should say “Use”, not “User”:
    6. Check the “User Secure Connection (SSL)” option.

    No biggie at all, just thought you might want to correct it.

  9. Holder says:

    Thank you for your posting!

    Great!

  10. Pete says:

    Hiya,
    This looks great — but sadly my Android phone keeps getting right to the end of the instructions, then reporting “Failed to create the Account, Please try again Later”.
    Any idea why?

  11. surfdork says:

    I am not successful. when attempting to do this on an Atrix using K9 and Maildroid.

    Setup could not finish
    “Cannot connect to server” (unable to connect)
    Questions?
    What port? I’ve used 443, 465,587 and 80 this correct vaulue is not autopopulated
    Authentication selected is PLAIN
    I added the IMAP path prefix of \frustrateduser@hotmail.com

    I don’t see the exchange server icon on my Atrix.

  12. surfdork says:

    OK so how do I get that option?

  13. surfdork says:

    OK so a user needs to instal touchdown, or moxer. Is there a free exchange client?

    This fails with touchdown , is there an alternative aside from forward all to gmail/yahoo?
    Error returned is error returning as folders.

    I’m continuing to try to make this work.

  14. surfdork says:

    Success, finally! Thank you for posting this information.

  15. Firstaidcourseslondon says:

    really useful for business when out of the office between appointments

  16. Nancy says:

    Hi, maybe you can help me with this issue..
    I’ve successfully set up my hotmail account on the exchange server; however, when I tried to add my live account, it keeps saying “Setup could not finish”, “Unable to open connection to server”.
    And if I use the regular “add account” (@others), my read emails are not sync together when I check my email on computer, it still shows as new.
    Please help…I would really appreciate it. Thanks.

  17. Darryl says:

    This guide is much appreciated. It works perfectly.

    Thanks for taking the time to create the step by step instructions. My Xperia Arc is now happy!

  18. Fai says:

    success after try several times! It works!

  19. CT says:

    Works just fine with HTC Evo 4G.

  20. Sam says:

    THANK YOU! Finally a tutorial that actually works flawlessly.

  21. rbbc1 says:

    Thank you very much for your steps. My account worked flawlesly using Enhanced Email client for Android in accessing my Office Live account.

  22. Scott says:

    UNREAL! So good.

  23. Slack says:

    Thanks, it works like a charm.

  24. poups says:

    Just great! Thanks a lot!

  25. Utoka666 says:

    It WORKS!!! Tnx!

  26. Gb1311 says:

    Hello, very good tutorial. I have a g2x and works fine, but with one issue, when I send an email the other person see my email like this: user @hotmail.com@hotmail.com@hotmail.com@hotmail.com@hotmail.co@hotmail.c@hotmail.@hotmail@hotmai@hotma@hotm@hot@ho@h@@hotmail.com with all those extra caracters and when they want to reply they can’t, any sugestions?
    Thanks

  27. Maximum thanks because I can use these settings in Thunderbird as well….. Sneaky but smart solution.

    • SLURM23 says:

      Hi! Have you managed to get Thunderbird running with there settings successfully? It works great on Android devices, but I wasn’t able to use ActiveSync in Thunderbird at all…

  28. Neha says:

    Thanks for the tutorial! When I set up my account, it works fine for the most part, but I noticed that it keeps pulling down the same emails over and over and showing them as unread, even if I’ve read them or deleted them. Any thoughts on how to fix that? I have an Evo Shift 4G.

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  30. Tony B. says:

    Thanks for this info. Just what I was looking for and worked perfectly.

  31. rob says:

    my windows live email account has dissapeared from my optimus one and i have now tried your guide to reinstall my account butit does not work and i dont get any emails i have a gmail account on the phone but my windows live is my real email account that i use any ideas please….

    • rob says:

      its ok fluffed it up kept deleting the \ in domain field thanks for the original help if only i followed it as directed properly i would have saved an hour thanks

  32. Hosh says:

    Wow! This was a great help. Thank you very much.

  33. Carl Perry says:

    Thanks, just synced hotmail account to my Samsung Galaxy S II Epic Touch from Sprint. So much better than POP3.

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  35. Andy Buss says:

    I have to do manual setup because my phone says “Setup could not finish- Unable to open connection to server” when I try to click next.
    When I try it manually my phone doesn’t give me the option to select MS Exhange or Others. My options are POP3, IMAP, Exchange.
    This brings up screen 6 above, but screen 5 above never comes up.
    When I enter the exact info it says in screen 6 it says “Setup could not finish- Setup failed. Please check the server settings (authentication failed).”
    Please help- I’ve been trying to install this for weeks!

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  37. Kim says:

    Same problem- Unable to open connection to server. Any ideas? Please tell me there’s a fix!

  38. Muhammad Adnan says:

    Hello Everyone,
    i have problem with my acer ferrari es100 that it is receiving old emails after deletion can anyone help me!

  39. Haley says:

    THANK YOU!!!! SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HELPFUL!!!

  40. Bruno Gadeyne says:

    Thx a lot mate !

  41. Richard says:

    Thank you so much! I have been searching the solution for the past 30 minutes! If only I had come across your link sooner. You are a lifesaver!

  42. Gnart says:

    Great job. Thank you.
    Anyone know how to configure Hotmail not to show HTML codes in messages?

  43. doreme says:

    a quick note to say thank you so much this is a really helping forum. I really appreciate it !!

  44. Bootopian says:

    Thanks man, never would have thought to try setting Hotmail as an Exchange Account in Android. Works great.

  45. Jo Lazari says:

    Honestly, just thank you SO much. I was going through a serious mid-life crisis as I hated Hotmail so much for it’s lack of connectivity, yet I’d had the account for over 15yrs, and therefore was really the ideal default account for me. I could’ve set up forwarding blah blah blah, but this is just….perfect. Finally, I can keep on top of my inbox without using a PC.

  46. Zoe says:

    My android tablet is still coming up with unable to connect to server
    HELP

  47. Pablo says:

    Thank you so much! My school institution uses the school’s domain in the e-mail addresses, but goes through Windows Live Hotmail. For example myname@email.schoolname.edu
    On my tablet I had not been able to add this account using hotmail’s POP or IMAP settings. By following your guide I was able to add the account in under 2 minutes and started receiving the e-mails. By the way I am using the Lenovo IdeaPad A1 with Android 2.3.4
    Thanks again!

  48. Eyong says:

    Works like a charm. For those see two separate entries for domain and username, leave domain blank, and enter the username as @hotmail.com

    Cheers.

  49. fede says:

    Graciass!! Me tenía re molesto el no tener las cuentas sincronizadas por el pop3! me re sirvió!!

    Saludosss

  50. Kumar says:

    Thanks so much for posting these step-by-step instructions! Successfully setup my Live inbox on Samsung Galaxy Epic Touch from Sprint.

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