Gav said:
I have outlook 2003. For a while now it will not sync with my hotmail
account properly. it downloads all my emails up to about September 2009 and
then nothing after that. Does any one know how to fix this?
A just how long is "awhile"? Half a year, maybe?
Cutoff for DAV access to Hotmail ended on September 1, 2009. Microsoft
switched to Deltasync as their HTTP communications protocol to their webmail
service. E-mail clients that support only DAV for HTTP access will no
longer be able to use it to access Hotmail. Your choices after the cutoff
are:
- Use POP to access your Hotmail account.
- Use a Deltasync-enabled client to see all the folders in your webmail
account for IMAP-like access.
- Use the webmail interface that has always been there even before
Microsoft bought Hotmail.
Also see
http://www.howto-outlook.com/news/hotmailaccessforbidden.htm
POP has no concept of folders. It only understands a mailbox where ALL your
e-mails reside. Because POP doesn't use folders, there are no commands
within the Post Office Protocol to navigate or select folders. It only has
access to your mailbox. The mailbox that POP can access is the Inbox folder
you see when using the webmail client to your account.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_office_protocol
http://communication.howstuffworks.com/email.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/pop_basics.htm
http://email.about.com/cs/standards/a/how_pop_works.htm
Hotmail has never had and still doesn't have IMAP access. IMAP lets you
access other folders in your e-mail account (or, more accurately, those
folders to which you have subscribed). Microsoft has hinted that they may
make IMAP access possible in the future but no Hotmail user is going to pend
using their account until if and whenever IMAP access shows up.
The only way to have local access to the non-Inbox folders in your Hotmail
account is to use Deltasync (DAV support died on 01-SEP-2009). This
protocol makes available all your folders that you defined using either the
Deltasync-enabled e-mail client (which then replicates that local folder on
the server) or syncs to those folders you created using the webmail client.
If you want IMAP-like access to your Hotmail account, you'll need to use
either the webmail client or a local e-mail client that supports Deltasync,
which are:
- Windows Live Mail (replaces Outlook Express and Vista's Windows Mail).
- Outlook 2003/2007 *plus* the Outlook Connector add-on. The add-on
adds Deltasync support since no version of Outlook natively supports
Deltasync. The add-on doesn't work with prior versions of Outlook.
- Use a screen-scraper proxy or e-mail client that tries to navigate the
web pages for the webmail client to Hotmail.
There are some screen scraper proxies or clients that will try to navigate
the web pages that makeup the webmail interface for Hotmail. That is, they
are coded to walk through the Hotmail web site. They act like a local
POP-to-HTTP proxy. You configure a POP account in your e-mail client that
connects to this protocol converter proxy that then uses HTTP to walk
through the Hotmail web site. They aren't reliable. FreePOPs, YahooPOPs
(for use with Yahoo Mail only), and Thunderbird with its Webmail proxy are
such types of screen-scraper clients. If the webmail interface changes then
these screen-scraper clients will fail. You cannot get your e-mails using
them until their author gets around to making their web-walking code match
the changes to the web site. Since they provide POP access through their
converter proxy, you only get access to your mailbox (which is the Inbox
folder shown in the webmail client). Since you use POP to connect to the
protocol converter proxy, you won't get IMAP or Deltasync access to the
other folders available in the webmail client. Since Hotmail, even for free
accounts, has POP access, there is no point in using a screen scraper to
access Hotmail.
