Comments on: Gmail gains offline support and Hotmail adds…um, POP3??

By: WWD’s 2009 in Review, Part 1

WWD’s 2009 in Review, Part 1 — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:01:32 +0000

[...] started quietly as far as many web workers were concerned, but significant tech news included offline support being added to Gmail, many web workers’ email client of choice, while GrandCentral’s SSL certificate expired [...]

By: Streamline Your Gmail With the “Send & Archive” Button

Streamline Your Gmail With the “Send & Archive” Button — Mon, 04 May 2009 20:01:25 +0000

[...] and tagging systems set up to make sure all my client emails stay sorted. Oh, did I mention offline mode? I can have all my emails downloaded to my computer so I can see them even when I am not [...]

By: Happy Birthday, Gmail!

Happy Birthday, Gmail! — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:36:49 +0000

[...] Labs: a way to “undo” sent messages, using canned responses for smart autoresponders, offline support using Gears and how to customize the way you view your mailbox using multiple [...]

By: WebWorkerDaily » Archive Kevin C. Tofel Interviews Todd Jackson, Gmail Project Manager at Google «

Thu, 12 Mar 2009 17:01:56 +0000

[...] so. In particular there has been lots of useful Labs features released (see our recent coverage of Offline, Multiple Inboxes, Canned Responses, Title Tweaks, Tasks and [...]

By: parabel

parabel — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:59:21 +0000

@Imran Ali & John B: Hotmail DID have POP3 support until about November 2005 (at least that’s the date of my last hotmails in Outlook before the Outlook Connector came). But then they dropped it claiming there was too much spamming abuse of that service and it was only available to paying “Hotmail Plus!” customers anymore. Then, a few months ago, there came the Outlook Connector (which I’m currently using, but Hotmail isn’t my primary address anymore since they dropped POP3) which lets you synchronize your Hotmail data (including calendars and contacts) through an Outlook plug-in. Quite useful, but still – IMAP would be cool, too…

By: Jeramy

Jeramy — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:21:43 +0000

I wonder if you can set up Gmail’s mail fetcher to grab your Hotmail…

http://tinyurl.com/2bguoo

By: Imran Ali

Imran Ali — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:48:51 +0000

@vcnickels I’d recommend looking at our post on ‘Jailbreaking Hotmail’ at http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/04/26/jailbreaking-hotmail/

I moved 8 years of Hotmail messages to a Gmail account using this method and have never looked back :)

By: vcnickels

vcnickels — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:14:35 +0000

I was excited when I saw this post in Google Reader "Finally I can get my Hotmail where ever! Then, my hopes were dashed. There are, like all things, caveats. The site that you have here just gives the nuts-and-bolts of setting it up. Steve inturn got his information from Sarah In Tampa where I was saddened to read the following:

If you live in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands then you have a new way to get your Hotmail on your mobile phone: via POP3. The POP3 protocol is a standard email protocol that lets you retrieve email messages from a server and deliver them to your designated program. With this functionality in place, you can easily add Hotmail to your Windows Mobile phone, iPhone, or BlackBerry.

and

If you don’t live in one of the regions specified, the Hotmail team says not too worry – they will be rolling out POP3 to other parts of the world later this year.

I live in the US, home of Microsoft and Hotmail. Where's the love? Where's the POP? Truthfully, I don't really use my Hotmail for much more than a throw away anymore but I've had the account since forever and some people still insist on sending me email there. It would have been nice to have it with all my other emails in Gmail. Oh well... I guess I have to keep Outlook for a while longer. damn.

By: Imran Ali

Imran Ali — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:10:15 +0000

@John B – Yes, there was a tool called Outlook Connector which allowed Outlook and Outlook Express to sync messages and folders with Hotmail.

@Rob S – I agree, it’s impossible to count Microsoft out and indeed Hotmail’ll remain a large part of millions of lives for years to come. However, it’s important to note the pace of change and innovation in competing services – notably Gmail and Yahoo Mail where there’s a degree of flexbility and data portability that Microsoft is sadly lacking. I’d be sad to see Hotmail decline – but it’s really hard to recommend it any more.

By: Rob S.

Rob S. — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 15:56:31 +0000

I’d be curious to see these stats broken down by age demographic. I work with some e-mail lists of 16-18 year olds. Not only is Hotmail more popular than Gmail by a 3 to 1 margin, Hotmail has grown year over year and by a larger margin than Gmail.

I certainly wouldn’t count Microsoft out of this game yet. Not to mention those who download e-mail from other services into Microsoft products (Outlook, Outlook Express, Live Mail…).

Yahoo still accounts for more users among this demographic on my lists than Hotmail and Gmail combined, accounting for 35-40% of the list.