How to Transfer and Move Hotmail to Gmail
Windows Live Hotmail (previously known as MSN Hotmail or simply Hotmail) has upgraded its user interface to new Outllook lookalike AJAX-intensive interface, and has successfully annoyed many existing users of Hotmail. Gmail turns out to be a good alternative if you decided to dump Hotmail and switch to other webmail service provider. Or for any reason, such as love the features and loading speed of Gmail, you want to transfer and move all your Hotmail email messages to Gmail, there is a very simple way to do it.
The trick to transfer and move mails in Hotmail to Gmail or vice versa from Gmail to Hotmail is by using IMAP support of Gmail and HTTP server support of Hotmail and MSN. Hotmail is typically a webmail service and Microsoft does not provides free POP3, IMAP and forwarding options for non-paying users. Previously, many users who want to download e-mails from Hotmail has to depend on third party program such as Hotmail Popper or third party service such as IzyMail to emulate as a POP3 and SMTP proxy server. With this trick, users no longer need to download and install any third party program to act as intermediary mail server to allow email client such as Eudora and Thunderbird to be able to download messages from Hotmail, which after that can be uploaded and imported into Gmail using Mark Lyon’s GMail Loader. This trick also secure and reduce privacy and security concern as you do not need to provide any user name and password to external party, and the e-mail messages been downloaded and then uploaded to Gmail do not go through third-party servers or other program parsing. You will also get the correct and unchanged timestamps on the mails imported into Gmail from Hotmail.
The moving of mails from Hotmail to Gmail relies on special email client from Microsoft is actually the same with process to upload and import existing mails into Gmail, with additional process to configure Hotmail account. For this purpose, you can pick from Outlook XP, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook Express (in XP or older version of Windows, but older OE does not support HTTP Server protocol) or Windows Live Mail (beta). These mail clients support HTTP Service Provider for Hotmail and MSN mail service, which in essence is the IMAP protocol for Hotmail. Note that Windows Mail in Vista no longer supports HTTP servers that are used by Hotmail and other Web-based e-mail providers.
To move and transfer from Hotmail to Gmail, firstly, configure and set up your Hotmail e-mail account on one of the supported mail client mentioned above. Here’s a guide to add Hotmail to Outlook 2007.
Next, configure and add Gmail mail account to the SAME mail client you used to setup Hotmail account by using IMAP access. That means if you’re using Outlook 2007, configure both Gmail and Hotmail account in Outlook 2007, with Gmail account type as IMAP, and Hotmail account type as HTTP. Before setting up, ensure that IMAP has been enabled in Gmail. To enable and turn on IMAP in Gmail, go to “Settings”, then click on “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab. Select “Enable IMAP” and then click on “Save Changes”. Gmail has a comprehensive guide on how to configure various email client to access Gmail via IMAP.
Once both accounts have been added, inside the mail client there should be 2 mail items or email folders to represent these two e-mail accounts.
Expand the folder tree to reveal Inbox mailboxes for both accounts. Now, simply select all messages in Inbox of Hotmail account and drag and drop or cut and paste them into Inbox of Gmail account folder. All e-mails in Hotmail will be moved and transfered over to Gmail.
Notes:
- If you have many folders in Hotmail to organize and categorize your emails, you need to go into each and every folders to move across the messages inside the folders to Gmail.
- If you still want to retain and keep copy of emails in Hotmail, make sure you use copy the emails, not move.
- You can put transfered emails into a folder under Gmail root folder. It only means that the emails will skip the Gmail Inbox and automatically applied with a label by the name of the folder. If you want to apply label and also want the emails to show up in Inbox, you need to copy twice – to Inbox, and to folder with the label name. See how to apply multiple labels to Gmail via IMAP.
- The process to download emails from Hotmail and then upload and import them into Gmail is slow and takes a long time, especially when the amount of mails is a lot. So be patience.
- If the transferring and moving is terminated halfway, simply select the remaining emails in Hotmail and move it to Gmail again to continue to transfer process. But ensure that both e-mail accounts is synchronized between local folders and the remote servers.
- The trick works also if you want to move from Gmail to Hotmail, or want to copy all mails from Hotmail to local folders.
Once all mails is moved, you can now start using Gmail with all your existing emails in Hotmail imported, with valid and correct timestamps, original sender name, and without worry on privacy or security issue as transferring process does not involve third party service.
Tip: With free POP3 support, Gmail can now download and transfer all mail messages from Hotmail automatically. If your Hotmail account hasn’t have POP3 enabled, use the hack to turn on POP3 access to Hotmail instantly.
Related Articles
- How to Configure Gmail to Download, Get and Transfer Mail from Hotmail via POP3
- Export, Copy and Transfer Hotmail Contacts to Gmail, Outlook or Another Account
- Move, Transfer, Migrate and Switch from @msn.com or @hotmail.com to @live.com for Fresh Start
- How to Transfer Emails from One Gmail to Another Gmail Mailbox
- How to Delete Emails from Gmail IMAP Access Mail Client
- Delay Sending of Email Message in Microsoft Outlook (Supports Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL and all POP3/IMAP Mail)
- How to Apply Multiple Labels to Gmail Messages in IMAP Client
- Easy Way to Import, Upload, Backup or Store Email Messages into Gmail for Archive
- How To Send Mail As Hotmail (smtp.live.com) in Gmail
- Set Up and Add Hotmail Account in Microsoft Outlook 2007
Entries (RSS)
September 26th, 2009 22:14
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THIS!!!! =)
June 9th, 2009 10:19
hi i need to transfer my hotmail calendar to gmail. this article came up in search but doesn’t deal with that specifically. do you know how i can do this? thanks
April 27th, 2009 15:19
It sounds like you’re creating problems yourself by trying to solve this issue instead of looking at why their is a problem in the first place
April 20th, 2009 06:25
Ok… Sorry I did not check the spam folder!
Danny thank you so much, It works!
April 20th, 2009 06:03
Hi everyone,
I followed all the steps Danny described, but I am blocked.
I think I have the same problem Liz had.
Liz, how did you solve it?? (BTW, I never received the Windows live activation email in my gmail inbox, so how do I activate it??)
February 18th, 2009 18:15
Hey Danny!
It finally worked! I just hat to activate the gmail-account :-$
thx a lot!!!!
February 18th, 2009 18:01
Hey guys!
Danny’s trick didn’t work for me either – I can only “switch” between these accounts, but not forward from hotmail to gmail. Are there other ideas?
thx
February 9th, 2009 23:50
Io ci sono riuscito impostando
nome utente: indirizzo email completo
password: password dell’indirizzo
server pop: pop3.live.com
porta: 995
SSL: attivo
January 8th, 2009 12:59
you can have incoming hotmail email redirected to gmail. Gmail explains it here:
Keeping your old email address?
Add it to Gmail and use it with your new account.
Gmail lets you add your other email addresses to your account so you can manage mail from one place. Use Gmail to send messages from another one of your email addresses. Here’s how:
* Log in to your Gmail account at mail.google.com.
* Click ‘Settings’ at the top of any Gmail page.
* Open the ‘Accounts’ tab, and click ‘Add another email address.’
* Enter your other email address in the text box, and click ‘Next Step.’
* Click ‘Send Verification.’ An email will be sent to your old account to verify that you entered the correct email address.
* Follow the instructions in the verification email, and start using your Gmail account to manage all of your email addresses!
January 5th, 2009 08:53
Danny’s method of using the linked passport accounts didn’t work for me. I still get the message that hotmail cannot forward to the gmail.com domain.
December 19th, 2008 23:18
If you want an easy way to be able to receive your hotmail messages on your iphone etc.. all you need to do is to create a rule in your email client to send all new incoming emails to a GMail, AOl etc account. Leave the client open on your desktop at all times. Then add that account you are forwarding to your mobile device.
In GMail it allows you to send and reply to email using any email address that you would like.
December 15th, 2008 09:21
There is also another way to enable a hotmail account to forward amails to a gmail account.
By default it is not possible to forward emails from hotmail accounts to non Microsoft associated email clients, such as gmail. However, there is a way to get around this.
For example, if you would like to have emails forwarded from abc@hotmail.com to xyz@gmail.comdo as follows:
1. Register xyz@gmail.com as a Microsoft Passport Account by going to the this cite – https://accountservices.passport.net/ppnetworkhome.srf?vv=600&lc=1033
2. Make sure that the abc@hotmail.com account is already registered as a Microsoft Passport Account, which it should be.
3. Log into the newly created xyz@gmail.com Microsoft Passport Account, and link the two accounts to each other – on the scroll down menu above the ‘Sign Out’ button, click on ‘Link Accounts’, and link the abc@hotmail account to the xyz@gmail Microsoft Passport Account
4. Sign on to the abc@hotmail.com account, which should now be linked to the xyz@gmail account, by clicking on it in the scroll down menu above the ‘Sign Out’ button, go to options, and set up the account to forward to xyz@gmail.com. This is a setting in the options menu.
Even though the hotmail account is not supposed to forward to non Microsoft related clients, it will now forward to the gmail account, becaue their Microsoft Passports are now linked to each other.
This worked for me, and I hope it works for anyone else who tries it.
Note, that nowhere during this whole process is in necessary to log on to the gmail account on the gmail domain, only log on to the newly created Microsoft Passport Account as xyz@gmail.com
Also note, that the emails will no longer be stored in the hotmail account. Once forwarded to the gmail account, they will be deleted from the hotmail account.
Hope that helps!
November 10th, 2008 23:34
[...] gmail with an HTTP connection for hotmail and IMAP for gmail. I simply followed instructions here: How to Transfer and Move Hotmail to Gmail
November 5th, 2008 06:10
[...] enviar de a muchos mensajes algo asi How to Transfer and Move Hotmail to Gmail My Digital Life ? moya si funciona, pero se supone que los bajas de hotmail con thunderbird y despues lo subes a [...]
November 5th, 2008 00:15
[...] The error looks like a Gmail mechanism to protect against robots or automated scripts, and probably to stop and halt abnormal bandwidth utilization (upload and download) or abusing account activity such as using Gmail as storage space drive or transferring other mail account to Gmail. [...]
September 30th, 2008 06:52
I wanted to migrate all of my old emails from my clumsy hotmail account to my new Gmail/Google Apps account and wasn’t sure how to do it once I’d established that Outlook Express doesn’t run on Vista, before reading your article.
I’d already tried Mozilla Thunderbird using their webmail plugins, however, that still didn’t download the folder structure for Hotmail even though via IMAP it did for Gmail.
As you wrote, the best answer is to use a free MS product such as the new Windows Live Mail (beta), which was indeed about to view hotmail’s folders via http and gmail’s (actually tags, but they work like folders) via imap at the same time, allowing for direct drag and drop functionality.
It still to nearly a full day to synchronise though,possibly due to my 12,000+ emails!
Thanks again, I may write a blog post covering this process and your article in due course.
Anthony
September 18th, 2008 20:42
Hi! I used this procedure and I am not successful in it.
Outlook 2003 is not Hotmail Live compatible. It is necessary to install a Microsoft addon called Microsoft Office Outlook Connector.
Can anyone help me with this??
July 23rd, 2008 12:19
This worked great for me
Thank you for the great walk through. At first I tried using POP because Windows Live suggested that I do, but of course it didn’t work. After that I just used the “Manual server configuration” and configured it per Gmail’s instructions and *blamo*, it worked like a charm.
Just a little note, if you have folders in your hotmail and aren’t seeing folders in your GMail, it’s because GMail doesn’t use folders, they use labels.
Thanks again for the great article,
Chrelad
December 26th, 2007 01:33
[...] My digital life kwam met een andere oplossing, die er wat ingewikkeld uitziet, maar wel werkt. Door een (tijdelijk) account aan te maken in Outlook, krijg je een map met al je Hotmail erin. En als je dan in Gmail de IMAP enabled (en Gmail beschrijft precies hoe je dat moet doen) krijg je ook een Gmail mapje in je Outlook. Daarna kopieer je je Hotmail mapje in je Gmail folder en klaar is kees: als je verbinding legt met je Gmail account staan ze er ineens in . [...]
December 26th, 2007 01:13
Thank you! It works great and indeed: new email to my hotmail account have to be forwarded one by one, but i hardly use that anymore.
I am grateful for my hotmail archive in gmail, and glad that i did not have to use a third party!
December 15th, 2007 01:12
Kind of crappy, new emails will still be coming to the Hotmail account and will have to do this trick everytime.
It is just good if you want to terminate your hotmail account.
¿How about someone develops a freeware program that would download all hotmail messages from HTTP format and become an IMAP server, like an “IMAP Hotmail API” kind of thing ?
What program of the mentioned does do something like that, did not show clear enough to me.
December 1st, 2007 15:02
This is an excellent article. Thanks!
November 5th, 2007 17:43
[...] export and move the contacts in Hotmail over to your new email account too. It’s very easy to move all mail messages to Gmail, a popular alternative to Hotmail and many other email services, so do copy and export Hotmail [...]