Until now Hotmail users had to pay in order to get POP3 access. Even though, many mail services had free POP3 service for its users, Hotmail still continued with its paid service.

Not anymore Windows Live Team has finally decided to provide Free Hotmail POP3 access to all its users. The free service is currently available in the following countries United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, France, Japan, Spain, Germany, Italy and Netherlands. Very soon the free service will also be available to countries which are not listed above.

Hotmail POP3 Configuration:

POP server: pop3.live.com

POP SSL required? Yes

User name: You’re Windows Live ID, for example yourname@hotmail.com

Password: The password you usually use to sign in to Hotmail or Windows Live

SMTP server: smtp.live.com

Authentication required? Yes (this matches your POP username and password)

TLS/SSL required? Yes

For curiosity, I tried to configure the following steps in my Thunderbird Email Client. It successfully communicated hotmail server, but it was rejecting the Username and Password with the Respond: User does not have POP3 access. So, it is clear that the service is not yet enabled in India.

Update March 14th, 2009: Hotmail POP3 Access is now Available Worldwide.