Microsoft announces Outlook.com as Hotmail's successor

Microsoft is billing Outlook.com as a new free mail service that pulls features from Hotmail and Exchange. It is designed for personal/consumer use; Microsoft continues to position Outlook as its business e-mail client. Outlook.com is integrated with Windows and Office, and can pull in Twitter, Facebook, Gmail and LinkedIn contacts. The new mail client has the Metro look and feel. And it is providing users with more granular control over which ads they see and where they see them.
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Those who've been following the increasingly regular feature updates that the Hotmail team has added to the service will be familiar with Outlook.com's features. The ability to view previews of attached photos; to "sweep" unwanted messages in bulk; to weed out "gray" (junk) mail more easily; and to access Microsoft's Office Web Apps (the Webified versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) from inside mail are all part of Outlook.com. (I'm not really sure which unique Exchange features are part of Outlook.com. Anyone?)
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Microsoft is providing new Outlook.com users with 7 GB of free cloud storage through SkyDrive. (If you already have a SkyDrive account, I don't believe you get an extra 7 GB added to your total available storage if you sign up for Outlook.com, however.) As it has been doing with Hotmail, Microsoft is trying to wean Outlook.com users from sending attachments. Instead, the focus is on saving files, photos and other content to the cloud, with "smart layouts" in email messages showing recipients what they can see via links and/or downloads.

On Windows devices, including Windows 8 and Windows RT tablets and PCs, users will have the option of choosing which mail client they want to use (when they click on the Mail app). One of the permitted choices will be Outlook.com. And on other mobile devices and phones -- not just Windows Phones, but any phone that supports Exchange ActiveSync -- Outlook.com will be a supported mail option, as well.

For those wondering about Skype integration, especially given this week's news regarding Google replacing Gmail video chat with Google+ Hangouts, Microsoft is dangling the promise of, at some point in the future, being able to launch Skype video calls from inside Outlook.com inboxes without having to use the Skype app. (It sounds like the ability to use Outloo.com plus video calling from the Web will be another option here.)

Microsoft is not commenting on when it expects Outlook.com will advance beyond the test stage. As of today, it is available in preview form. Those who already have @hotmail.com and/or @live.com email addresses that they want to move to @outlook.com can click "Upgrade to Outlook.com" in the options menu. Those who do not have existing Microsoft consumer mail accounts with those addresses can sign up for a new @outlook.com email address via www.outlook.com.

Sources :

Microsoft introduces Outlook.com, Hotmail's planned successor | ZDNet

Outlook Blog - Introducing Outlook.com - Modern Email for the Next Billion Mailboxes

My Firstlook : The UI looks pretty sleek, no nonsense with the Metro UI doing the rounds.

It seems to be a good updated email service

I like the UI very much.

Its just plain simple.

People can get a @outlook.com email address which can act as a forwarding address to your old account.

But current hotmail/live users using email adresses on WP7 phones are warned not to change to the new id

hhmm..interface looks cool and uncluttered.hotmail to live to outlook.

T

hmmm.... Just testing the new outlook.com , its so nice and clean.

It is much like Hotmail with a new UI. What always bugs me is the ads on the right hand side in Hotmail, hope to get rid of ads in this new UI.

Oh ! just discoverd, its still in BETA, SkyDrive and Calendar are still in LIVE.com

Also, I noticed that the interface of Outlook is more towards TOUCH based, feels like you can touch the icons to work your way through the emails.

My new email id:

gmail@outlook.com

Yeah UI is really Awesome

N

Google+ , Outlook.com ..sameguy

Both getting just signups

UI is better than hotmail but still welcome back to windows 95 UI

I am better and satisfied with my gmail account.

lol...wtf

Sign Up Error 450

You've reached the daily limit for creating Microsoft accounts. Please wait a day and try to sign up again or contact support for assistance.

N

Also this

Password can't be longer than 16 characters? Welcome to the most secure e-mail-service in the world!

Just upgraded my live.in ID to this.
Good UI.

N

Try using the site from mobile

eggman said:
My new email id:

gmail@outlook.com

MSFT has done well with the interface.

N

Liverpool_fan said:
MSFT has done well with the interface.

Compose mail screen looks totally ugly.

I like the Compose Window, it's minimalist, functional and most of all easy on the eye.

I still prefer Mail Clients than any web interface though.

seriously ? :lol:

eggman said:
My new email id:
gmail@outlook.com

Old Rajinikanth joke.

Rajinikanth's Gmail ID:

gmail@rajinikanth.com

I managed to get an id with my name

and one for my brother too, but he doesn't know yet

I will be forwarding mail from Gmail to it now. Making the switch over soon.

Saw this on twitter too. will signup too

A

Good step from microsoft. Hope I can transfer all the old mails from hotmail to outlook. Any ideas on the same?

my hotmail got automatically migrated to outlook with out my consent.

any way, registered for @outlook.com. will forward gmail to outlook and test it for some time.

You can always rename your old email address to new one. For. Eg. xyz@hotmail.com to xyz@outlook.com

Your existing email will still be there and emails coming to xyz@hotmail.com will come to your new xyz@outlook.com email address.

To know more, click here

so i have same ids with hotmail and outlook domain. let me try renaming my hotmail id now to outlook then

reniarahim1 - There might be a temporary outage on that page at this moment. Try later.

I logged in using my Live account, which I registered using my Gmail account. Is there anyway I can change it to @outlook without losing mails?

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I logged in using my Live account, which I registered using my Gmail account. Is there anyway I can change it to @outlook without losing mails?

Sorry, could not understand.

Correction :
I logged in using my Live account, which I registered using my Gmail address. Is there anyway I can change it to @outlook without losing mails?

What I mean it that it shows xxxxxxx@gmail.com as the address in Outlook.com. So, I need to change it to xxxxxxx@outlook.com.

A

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
I logged in using my Live account, which I registered using my Gmail account. Is there anyway I can change it to @outlook without losing mails?

I knew that yahoo supported this, but even msn supports the same. I missed that one. In this case you have to have a *******.hotmail.com like address. Gmail won't do. But it doen't matter because only the interface is changing, so you can use hotmail as usual.

Not sure. Try these steps and let us know :

1. Visit www.outlook.com
2. Log in with your xxxxx@gmail.com account.
3. You will receive an email from Outlook Team.
4. Open the Email and click on connect now. (Third from top)
5. Read Instructions and let us know if you can migrate to xxxxx@outlook.com

No..I don't want to migrate. I just want my live Id to become xxxxxx@outlook.com

DeSmOnD dAvId said:
No..I don't want to migrate. I just want my live Id to become xxxxxx@outlook.com

Don't think you can rename your email address by changing the domain name itself.

Just to let you know - even though you migrate, you will still continue to receive emails sent to you on your xxxxxx@gmail.com as well as xxxxxx@outlook.com in the same inbox.

A

Desmond actually means that he'll use outlook to access hotmail to access gmail...lol....just kidding. Just wanted to know that can I use gmail id to login into hotmail? What will be the benefit?

No. Earlier it was possible to convert your Gmail Ids to use it with Windows Live messenger.

Read this : -
How to use a Gmail™ account as a Windows Live ID

A

Got it

changed to @outlook.com from @live.in

hated the country specific .in domains + outlook.com seems fancy and interface is like 10 time better..... but no opera compatibility :pullhair:

D

Haha!
I registered devworx@outlook.com :-D

micromax@outlook.com :-D

Domain name trolls.

I renamed mine. Now looks fancy.

Also got an SMS from Microsoft on my mobile phone (as I have associated my cellphone number to the account) stating that my account has been renamed.

Few things I came across after renaming your email address with @outlook.com ---

• Email sent to your old address will still go to your account.
• Remember to always sign in with your new address; you won't be able to sign in with your old one.
• If you'd like to stop receiving mail sent to your old address, just delete that address in account services. Once you go to account services, you get an option to remove and get rid of your @Hotmail.com email address.

@live.in ftw for me.

ico said:
@live.in ftw for me.

do you even use hotmail?

ssk_the_gr8 said:
do you even use hotmail?

Games for Windows Live.

K

ico said:
Old Rajinikanth joke.

Rajinikanth's Gmail ID:

gmail@rajinikanth.com

It works i had mailed there and received a reply too.

ico said:
Games for Windows Live.

is it still alive, I thought it was dead

N

you can rename your current @hotmail.com account by going here once you've logged in: Sign In click on the update your email address link

Krow said:
Domain name trolls.

Yeah, specially with that renaming feature :-x

Some friends of mine went overboard on Facebook saying its the best UI they've ever seen for a Mail and OUTLOOK FTW etc ..

I cannot imagine shifting my email preferences so suddenly just for the looks.

Primarily use a Gmail account , i would be in deep trouble if i ever lost it, have Yahoo , Live.in ( which now redirects me to Outlook) as secondary.

mitraark said:
Some friends of mine went overboard on Facebook saying its the best UI they've ever seen for a Mail and OUTLOOK FTW etc ..

I cannot imagine shifting my email preferences so suddenly just for the looks.

Primarily use a Gmail account , i would be in deep trouble if i ever lost it, have Yahoo , Live.in ( which now redirects me to Outlook) as secondary.

The interface is damn slow, and its not due to my connection, does not work with opera properly, I am using it just cause I got a good email id and another good alias with it.

tkin said:
The interface is damn slow, and its not due to my connection, does not work with opera properly, I am using it just cause I got a good email id and another good alias with it.

it's a compatibility issue with opera... works fine with IE... it's not at all slow

N

The UI looks so plain, so clean, so organised, so......Metro.
My gmail inbox is now filled with garbage mails. And the @live.com after my name looks so cool as an email id. But I think choosing live.in would have been better.

msn said:
Don't think you can rename your email address by changing the domain name itself.

Just to let you know - even though you migrate, you will still continue to receive emails sent to you on your xxxxxx@gmail.com as well as xxxxxx@outlook.com in the same inbox.

No migration. What I mean is that since I have logged in using my gmail id as Microsoft id, I am unable to receive mails to my outlook.com account since the address shows "xxxxxx@gmail.com" in outlook.com. I can use all services but mail.

akkib89 said:
Desmond actually means that he'll use outlook to access hotmail to access gmail...lol....just kidding. Just wanted to know that can I use gmail id to login into hotmail? What will be the benefit?

Yes you can, but I don't think you can receive mails in your hotmail account since you don't have a mail address for that domain. You can use all other services though.

Anyway, I created a new account on outlook.com.

no issues with people going gaga over the "new" look of outlook.com but i find it hilarious that tech journos talk about the outlook.com(metro) design philosophy like it is such a bold new revolutionary blah blah design... where as WP users have been using it for 2 years .. Their Ignorance :facepalm:

T

Hmmmm...

The idea of this Outlook.com UI is to bring WP + W8 interface on the web as well. This will make things easier for WP and W8 users, since they will get similar UI on the web also.

R

Really like the clean new look, but I still prefer Opera Mail, its much cleaner and simple..

Tech&ME said:
Hmmmm...

The idea of this Outlook.com UI is to bring WP + W8 interface on the web as well. This will make things easier for WP and W8 users, since they will get similar UI on the web also.

i know.... but tech journos are supposed to be "informed" .. thats why i find it amazing

R

Cooooooooooool

N

I thought I will miss gmail but outlook.com is awesome guys! It's very clean and organised and I can chat with buddies without logging into facebook (I don't know gmail has it or not but it's very cool :))

. Let's celebrate it's birth with a new pic.
*i50.tinypic.com/2llg1ld.jpg
(Sorry for smudging out the personal info)
Anyway there are a few problems with this:
1.When someone sends you a message via chat and you're on a different tab the outlook tab doesn't flash and I don't hear a sound either. I have to open the tab frequently to see any new messages.
2.There is a single pane on the RHS for chat but you had different windows in gmail,fb etc. Switching between different chat conversations is painful (you have to click the back button then select the friend, it requires single click in gmail) Also you can view on conversation at a time.
There's a feedback button and I mailed them the problems so I hope it gets fixed.

G

It surely looks to be a move to tackle Google's Gmail.Let us see whether it succeeds or not. :-?

Its still a preview, I think it will become better when its officially out.

The interface is quite simple and attractive. I guess its more analogous to the Windows new layout of Win 8.

btw, i logged in with my hotmail account, so will they automatically update all the @hotmail.com to @outlook.com accounts ? Or do we need to sign up again ?

Ok, I take back everything I had said about outlook, outlook rocks, interface has gotten faster, no more lags now, and I just love the metro UI on it, very easy to manage, better than gmail atleast, and I just registered some cool aliases(all personal, related to me) and I got every address I ever wanted, better than the mile long address I use for google.

Usui1811 said:
The interface is quite simple and attractive. I guess its more analogous to the Windows new layout of Win 8.

btw, i logged in with my hotmail account, so will they automatically update all the @hotmail.com to @outlook.com accounts ? Or do we need to sign up again ?

Not sure about that. Even I had logged in using my Gmail address, but could not find any way to change it to xxxx@outlook.com. Created a new account anyways.

An update. Been using it since the day it released. Full time. Don't miss Gmail a bit. Don't think I will go back.

S

I still feel old hotmail was better in so many ways...havent used the outlook one much yet !

me too

opinions would surely change once you start using it !! xD

^ Very True. I liked the integration of New Skydrive into Outlook.

^^ i'm waiting for the new calendar ... Using all the new Msoft services with my windows phone is a joy

all good usernames are gone !??? .............. man why i am so late at this kind of things

Is it possible to add Rediffmail & Yahoo to Outlook account ?
If,YES.
How ?
I tried but could not able to do that.

You can use auto forward option from rediffmail and yahoo mail.

yes it is a good email service offers unlimited storage ...

B

I loved this.. the UI is great, the idea of having your name @ outlook.com makes it a grand come back!