
Outlook.com now has IMAP - graublau
http://blogs.office.com/b/microsoft-outlook/archive/2013/09/12/outlook-com-now-with-imap.aspx
======
ejdyksen
Interestingly, it looks like they used their AMA on Reddit specifically to
announce this [1].

Kind of a neat idea.

    
    
        1) Implement a long-requested feature.
        2) Do AMA on Reddit and wait for inevitable "when are we getting {feature}?"
        3) Answer with "right now!"
    

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m926j/we_are_the_outl...](http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1m926j/we_are_the_outlookcom_team_ask_us_anything/cc6xk7e)

~~~
vowelless
As others on that page have noted, it is a little suspicious that /u/falconer
didn't post anything for 2 years before posting the question about IMAP.

Does indeed look at like a marketing ploy. Nothing wrong with that.

~~~
rcb
Nearly a year ago I posted a positive comment on HN about Windows 8, and was
then accused (by TWO individuals) of astroturfing.

The anti-M$ hate & paranoia that HN seems to have inherited from /. seems so
beyond antiquated in this day and age.

On topic: This is great news. Congratulations to MS.

~~~
criley2
I get the same thing from geeks on Reddit regarding Windows 8. Usually a fair
bit of nasty language clears up any /r/HailCorporate connotations.

It's so sad to see people who, on one hand will wax poetic on the subject of
rationality and open mindedness,will turn around and join a tech bandwagon
with no real reason and certainly no real knowledge.

Win8 is better than 7, even if you hate Metro. Objectively, statistically, the
OS is more performant than 7.

Of course, openminded geeks never let data and stats get in the way of the
anti-ms bandwagon. I'm sure they'll come around for the next windows, "because
Windows is good every other release, donchaknow"!

~~~
danieldk
_I get the same thing from geeks on Reddit regarding Windows 8._

Yeah, some people seem to be so blinded by hate towards Microsoft (yes, they
behaved notoriously bad), that they can only judge whatever comes out of
Microsoft based on that.

I like what they are doing with Windows Phone, Skydrive, Outlook.com, and web-
based Office (and I am a UNIX user). But any such comment is usually with by
vile reactions.

Yes, you may not like Microsoft and object to using their product because of
their moral behavior (ironically, they seem to be one of the least walled-
garden-ish company these days). But can we at least judge their products by
their technical merit?

~~~
sesqu
> I like what they are doing with Windows Phone, Skydrive, Outlook.com, and
> web-based Office

I don't. It's entirely possible that you confound the company-directed hate
with the product-directed hate, simply because you have neither.

~~~
300bps
Which model of Windows Phone did you own? How long did you use it? How big of
a SkyDrive did you own? Did you use Outlook.com or Hosted Exchange/Office 365?

For me, I'm very happy with my Lumia 928, 125 GB SkyDrive and the 400+ users I
set up on Office 365 love the email system and web based Office.

------
pathikrit
I opened my pathikritbhowmick@msn.com email address in 1997. They then
rebranded it to hotmail.com, then to live.com, then to windowslive.com, then
back to live.com and then to outlook.com. I still sign-on to my email using my
@msn.com...

~~~
Pxtl
Whoever succeeds Ballmer is going to have to take a long hard look at their
strategic marketing team. Seriously, MS has ADD or something.

~~~
jaredmcateer
I suspect it's not ADD, it's reactionary decisions made from lack of or
improperly interpreted data.

------
sitharus
The Microsoft services are becoming a very tempting alternative to Google
Apps.

Mostly I'm getting sick of Google randomly dropping services I use and re-
designing every 3 months.

I was looking at fastmail.fm for my mail hosting, but now I'll have to check
out outlook.com as well.

~~~
larrik
Whenever I think Microsoft's online offerings look good, I remember this
article:

[http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-
skydriveyou-m...](http://wmpoweruser.com/watch-what-you-store-on-skydriveyou-
may-lose-your-microsoft-life/)

Of course, the NSA revelations make it hardly matter anyway.

~~~
Pxtl
... thanks for the heads up. I was actually starting to like SkyDrive after I
got a free winphone and started using the MS ecosystem.

Now, knowing that MS is prone to shutting down the whole account for perceived
infractions? I have family photos that aren't backed up anywhere else there.
That's not cool.

Honestly, even if this policy was reserved for kiddy-porn and crack-dealers,
the "boom your stuff is gone no review no discussion" approach to it means the
possibility of a false-positive is scary.

~~~
cbhl
> _Now, knowing that MS is prone to shutting down the whole account for
> perceived infractions?_

IIRC, Google is just as prone to doing this too.

------
Pxtl
I can't keep track of all the MS rebranding - is Outlook.com the same as
Mail.Live.com, which used to be Hotmail.com?

(random aside about Microsoft's rebranding - if you want to get to the photo
gallery associated with your Live.com account, you have to go to SkyDrive,
because if you search for Live Photo you get the Windows 7/8 desktop
application)

~~~
cbhl
Yes.

------
sergiosgc
Amazing how they paint EAS as a better protocol than the "older" IMAP. EAS is
a beast of a protocol. Just go to the protocol page at Microsoft[1] to get
scared. The list of sub protocols and data formats is terrifying! This,
compared to a protocol for which the basic session can be taught in five
minutes tells a lot about the quality of both protocols.

Simplicity follows good engineering. EAS is way more complex than necessary.

[1] [http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc425499%28v=EXCHG.%...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/cc425499%28v=EXCHG.%2080%29.aspx)

~~~
guardian5x
Of course its more complex. EAS includes a lot more than the IMAP protocol,
e.g. Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Documents support.

~~~
sergiosgc
Can you point me to an online sample session, equivalent to this:
[http://coewww.rutgers.edu/www1/linuxclass2010/lessons/Email/...](http://coewww.rutgers.edu/www1/linuxclass2010/lessons/Email/sec_7.php)

My point stands. EAS is not just extensive it is needlessly complex.

------
busterc
Learn how to setup Outlook.com for custom domain free email hosting
[http://www.blogsynthesis.com/setup-microsoft-outlook-
custom-...](http://www.blogsynthesis.com/setup-microsoft-outlook-custom-
domain/) as posted here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6375844](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6375844)

------
zokier
Wait, one of the biggest mail providers (that did a relaunch not so long time
ago) did _not_ have IMAP until now?!

~~~
jessaustin
They're on the bleeding edge now!

~~~
broodbucket
The technology just wasn't there yet.

------
Aldo_MX
Microsoft criticizes how Google scans your mail to provide you with targeted
ads, yet they are promoting the following service which is arguably similar:

> Sift makes it easier than ever to find the products you're already
> interested in. It uses existing shopping content in your Outlook.com account
> to discover your favorite stores and products, then creates a personalized
> shopping experience.

~~~
HelloMcFly
I feel there is a very important difference between Google automatically
scanning all of my emails, and Microsoft pointing out that a third-party
service allows you to choose to have your inbox scanned now functions with
Outlook.com.

~~~
mc32
IIRC, MS scan "to:" "from:" and "subject:" but not "content" whereas Google,
they claim, does scan content.

~~~
3rd3
They both provide access for the NSA anyway, don't they?

~~~
mc32
That's a different issue. This is about how they commercialize (monetize)
their offerings, not about who grants what data to _Govs_. One issue is
companies have more say with regard to how they monetize your data, the other
is about how they are compelled, by law, to hand over your data to govts.

~~~
yesplorer
Amen to this.

I have a drea, that one day there will be a post relating any big
software/internet corp, without a snarky comment about NSA .

~~~
3rd3
I was just thinking that if you want to choose your service provider by how
transparently and trustworthy your data will be treated, they both disqualify
anyway.

------
rschmitty
Does anyone know if this would allow you to use outlook.com with Outlook (on
the desktop) and send mail from your domain without the "on behalf of"
message?

Previously if you used outlook.com with Outlook for desktop you had to use the
Hotmail connector. Sending emails to others they would see from
you@outlook.com on behalf of you@yourdomain.com

~~~
fekberg
Yes, you can do that. If you login to your outlook.com account, go into
settings then "Your email accounts". Here you can add send only accounts with
custom SMTP just as with gmail this removes on behalf of. I've setup my
desktop outlook client to use my Outlook.com address but when the message is
sent by Outlook.com it uses my own domain and no "On Behalf Of".

Hope that helps..

~~~
rschmitty
Thanks! completely forgot that was my problem with the old Hotmail connector,
you couldnt set a specific SMTP

Derp :)

------
samspenc
"With today's announcement, we now have a richer email experience across
devices and apps, including those not using EAS, such as Mac Mail and
Thunderbird on a Mac."

LOL, they made sure to avoid mentioning Mail on Android...

------
footpath
Looks like it's still not possible to send from alias addresses with the
provided SMTP server.

Outlook.com allows users to have up to 10 different alias email addresses, and
the users can send emails using any of those alias addresses provided that
they are sending from the desktop website of Outlook.com or the Windows 8 Mail
app. However, users can only send from one of their alias addresses if users
set up their Outlook.com account on any other mail client, whether using POP,
IMAP, or EAS. That includes the official Outlook.com app for Android[1] and
the desktop Outlook 2013 client[2], plus Thunderbird and other desktop mail
clients[3].

I do hope that this issue gets addressed in the near future.

[1] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-
sy...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-sync/how-do-
i-send-an-email-from-my-alias-using-the/b233d566-4567-4054-8fba-2b6e34258745)

[2] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/office/forum/office_2013_...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-
us/office/forum/office_2013_release-outlook/how-to-send-emails-from-
outlookcom-alias-in/91fe4b8a-4d67-4873-ba5d-db0fc5058a30)

[3] [http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-
em...](http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-email/how-to-
sync-outlookcoms-alias-to-thunderbird-
or/3cba0cdf-7fab-4b68-b2ce-8b6d815ad3ea?msgId=966f5f0e-3e14-42ea-9fa2-853e8714fe32)

------
skeoh
Reposting the configuration settings:

    
    
        Incoming IMAP
            Server: imap-mail.outlook.com
            Server port: 993
            Encryption: SSL
        Outgoing SMTP
            Server: smtp-mail.outlook.com
            Server port: 587
            Encryption:  TLS
    

For anyone on Android having trouble setting up the outgoing SMTP settings on
their mail account like I was: set the security type to STARTTLS instead of
SSL/TLS.

~~~
robmueller
I really wish companies would get SSL vs TLS vs STARTTLS right. I wrote about
this on our blog a while back and ended up turning it into a help page because
people still seem to get confused.

[https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technology_ssl_vs_tls_starttls....](https://www.fastmail.fm/help/technology_ssl_vs_tls_starttls.html)

------
rheide
So far Microsoft is doing everything right with Outlook. If I didn't already
have a gmail address I would easily prefer Outlook over gmail.

~~~
outside1234
you can redirect it to Outlook. :)

~~~
randomhunt
Sorry for butting in but I've recently done this, the new Gmail compose
"experience" was the final straw.

I'm happy - the only thing that is a bit weird is I'll sometimes get spam
mails duplicated arriving at my outlook.com address. Never with "normal" mails
only the obvious spam.

Does anyone know of an easy way to extract all my mails from Gmail? I'd like
to dump them in the filesystem and then kill my Google account.

~~~
zheng
I've used gmvault[1] before, and it works pretty well at preserving labels and
playing nice with Gmail's specific idioms not common among other IMAP
providers.

[1] - [http://gmvault.org/](http://gmvault.org/)

------
mvip
Yay! We have now finally been able to add support for Hotmail in
YippieMove[1]. It has been one of the most popular feature requests since we
launched back in '08.

[1] [http://www.yippiemove.com](http://www.yippiemove.com)

------
adrianlmm
Freaking awesome, thank you MS.

------
josteink
You could certainly say that was about time.

On the flip side, I always thought they held back on IMAP-support for
political reasons. If whatever political momentum which stalled this obviously
missing feature is gone from Microsoft, that's probably a good thing which may
have more positive effects down the road.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
I wish they would also have starttls support. I also don't wan't smtp or imap
support at all. I want only smtps and imaps support. By not supporting
insecure protocols at all, you can avoid huge possibility of insecure
misconfiguration.

------
philfreo
It didn't before? Well in that case I can report that Close.io
<[http://close.io/>](http://close.io/>) now supports full 2 way email
integration with Outlook.com.

------
corford
Would be nice if they could spread some of this new found IMAP love to Outlook
proper. Last time I checked, support for it is still fairly half hearted :(

------
johnchristopher
Funny how rebranding goes. When I use Apple Mail auto-detect (on snow leopard)
account function it gives me some live.com IMAP parameters.

------
talles
Finally.

------
izietto
The news is it didn't have it before :P

------
a__remie
finally, welcome in the 21st century.

