How to configure Outlook.com email on your mobile with Push notifications

If you are a fan of Hotmail aka Outlook.com email, a free email service of Microsoft and you use emails on your smart phone then this is helpful for you.

Push notifications are the instant notification of new incoming emails, just like sms, of course if you are connected to internet.

The easiest way to configure Outlook or Hotmail on your android device is to download the Outlook.com App available at Play Store. But this App is still in early phase of development and lacks some features you may want like HTML composer, managing different emails at one place etc. Or anyway if you like the default Android Email client you can easily configure Outlook.com emails on it with Push Notifications, and with Contacts, Calendar and Task Synchronization.

Also Read: POP v/s IMAP and PUSH Mail for newbies

On Android Emial client, email accounts can be configures with POP3, IMAP and Exchange Active Sync (EAS) protocols. POP3 does not support Push notifications. Hotmail's IMAP is not equipped with Push either. But Microsoft has updated Outlook.com with EAS. With EAS emails can be configured with push notifications, along with contacts, calendar and task sync.

Steps to configure Outlook.com email on Android Email client

1.       On your device, open Email App of Mail App on some android versions, then tap Add account.

2.       Enter your Outlook.com/Hotmail/Live.com email address and password, then tap Manual setup. If you continue with Automatic Setup or Next, the Email App configure your account with POP3 settings.

3.       Under What type of account is this? tap Exchange ActiveSync.

4.       If there is a Domain field, leave it blank. If there is a Username field, enter your full email address as in [email protected] or [email protected] and enter the password of your account. If there is Username field in form of Domain\Username Type your full email like this \[email protected]

5.       For Server name enter s.outlook.com.

6.       Make sure the Use secure connection (SSL) checkbox is checked, then tap Next.

7.       As soon as your phone verifies the server settings, the Account Options screen displays. The options available depend on the version of Android on your device. The options may include the following:

a.       Email checking frequency: The default value is Automatic (push). When you select this option, email messages will be sent to your phone as they arrive.

b.      Amount to synchronize: This is the amount of mail you want to keep on your mobile phone. You can choose from several length options, including One day, Three days, and One week.

c.       Notify me when email arrives: If you select this option, your mobile phone will notify you when you receive a new email message.

d.      Sync contacts from this account: If you select this option, your contacts will be synchronized between your phone and your account.

8.       Select Next and then type a name for this account and the name you want displayed when you send e-mail to others. Select Done to complete the email setup and start using your account.

The steps are presented in the images below.

By these steps, the outlook.com email accounts can be configured on any App which supports Exchange Active Sync, on Android, iPhone or Windows.

Few things to note:

## This setting works with free email accounts on live.com or outloo.com. If your email is on Office 365, the server will be different. Ask your email administrator for the server name.

## Push notifications use data so if you have very limited data then use this with caution.

## With Email App use of only one alias is possible at a time, which is used to configure email account. Use of multiple alias is not supported. This feature is available in Outlook.com App but it is still buggy.

## Popular email App K-9 mail and Kaiten Mail on Android devices do not support Exchange ActiveSync as of now, so this will not work on these apps. These apps support Exchnge mail via WebDav.