Hotmail is getting better and better!

Hotmail is my first webmail; I started using it more than 10 years ago.  I switched to other webmail like Yahoo and Gmail for various reasons.  But about 2 years ago, I switched back to Hotmail and I found it was getting better and better.  And I like to share some of the favorite features with you.

 

 

It doesn’t have to be hotmail.com

Our email address does have to be xyz@hotmail.com; it can be xyz@live.com or local live domain, e.g. xyz@live.ca.  And if you are using Microsoft Office Live Small Business.  It is free and we can register our own domain, then we can have up to 100 email address for our specific domain name.  My email address is chan_a@algconsultings.com and I can access it from Hotmail just like my personal Hotmail accounts.

Ever-growing storage

Hotmail provides us with as much storage space as we need, i.e. there is no limit, provided that we send and receive a normal amount of e-mail. Our inbox capacity will automatically increase as we need more space.

10 GB email attachment

How big is 10 GB?  I really have no idea because I never send any email with 10 GB attachment, not even 1 GB!

Sending/receiving email from other accounts

How many email accounts do you have?  I have quite a few, e.g. Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, …etc.  Now we can send / receive email from these accounts within Hotmail.

Virtual Broom (Sweep)

This is my favorite Hotmail feature.  I receive over hundred emails everyday.  A lot of them are from social media, e.g. Facebook, LinkedIn…etc.  I like to read all of them but at the same time, I want to read email from my clients / business partners first.  So I create different email folders and use the Sweep function to move all non critical emails to these folders; then I have a clean inbox and I can see all my critical emails.

 

Office Web Apps Integration

When we receive an email with Office documents attached, we no longer need to download them.  We can just read the documents online within Hotmail.

Active View

We probably receive e-mail that includes photos and videos. Active View allows us to preview photo / video right in Hotmail.

Hotmail Active View

Vacation Reply

We all love vacation!  When we are on vacation, our email is still busy!  And we want to let our clients and business partners to know that we are on vacation and who they should contact instead.  Hotmail gives us Vacation Reply.

Group messages by conversation

Gmail introduced this feature many years ago; it group all emails from the same conversation together so that we don’t have to search all over inbox.  Now, Hotmail also provides the same features and we have the option to enable / disable it.

Hotmail on the road

I can read / send Hotmail on my Blackberry, iPod Touch and obviously Windows Phone.  So I won’t miss any critical email even I am on the road; critical features for any mobile worker.

Social Media Integration

Hotmail is no longer just email.  It integrates with MSN Messenger, Calendar, LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace all into a central message hub.  We are in a better position to see everything in 1 single place, i.e. HOTMAIL.

Conclusion

I can’t cover every single Hotmail feature because there are a lot.  I need to write a book if I want to cover them all. 

If you are using Hotmail, have you fully unitized it?  What is your favorite Hotmail features?

Andrew Chan is the owner and founder of ALG Inc.

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