What's in your Hotmail inbox? If it's crammed full of special offers, newsletters you can't seem to unsubscribe from and all the other detritus that clogs up most inboxes, you'll want to try the new version of Hotmail (coming in June or July this year).
It still has Microsoft's SmartScreen filters for spotting and blocking spam, but it also has two handy tools for dealing with message that aren't actually junk – even though you might be marking them as junk to get rid of them.
We sign up for online newsletters – or more often we order something or sign in to a site and forget to tick the box saying we don't want the newsletter – and then we never unsubscribe.
Having users mark all those unwanted messages as spam makes it harder to find the real spam, and it's bad news for legitimate senders who get a reputation as spammers when it's just us users being lazy.
CLEAN UP: Just hovering your mouse over an email gets you the option to delete all the messages from a mailing list you no longer want
Hotmail will be adding a new Sweep menu with two new commands, Move all from and Delete all from (as well as the self-explanatory Mark this folder as read and Empty this folder).
If you want to keep a newsletter but you don't want it clogging up your inbox, you can move it – and all the previous copies of it you haven't got around to reading - and the next time that newsletter arrives, it will automatically get moved, too. Delete the mail and you have the option of deleting all future mails, too.
QUICK CLEAN: Choose to delete all messages and you can block future messages at the same time
Hotmail Quick views
That's enough to reclaim a Hotmail inbox you haven't been able to use for years, but the new Quick views are just as useful. You can see just the messages you've flagged, just the emails with photos or documents attached - or just shipping notifications.
Initially this only works with US Post Office deliveries, but it will work with UPS, Fedex and other delivery services around the world; not only does it filter the shipping messages but you also get a live view of where the package is and when it's going to arrive and you can click to get a popup with the details from the shipping site.
FLAGGED VIEW: See just the messages you've flagged to deal with later
You can filter the main inbox or the Quick views to show unread messages, messages from people who are in your address book, messages that show you what's going on in your social network or messages from the mailing lists you've decided to keep.
Filtering your inbox like this lets you look through to see what's interesting and important very quickly. If none of that finds what you're looking for, not only does search filter messages as you type, and autocomplete to match names in your email – but it also lets you choose to further filter messages by searching for from, to or subject. Hotmail's always had powerful search but this is much easier to use.
Your comments (4) Click to add a new comment
mikescha
May 20th 2010
4. Hi, I work on the Hotmail product team, and so am very familiar with the features. Two things I wanted to clarify in the comment thread:
1) Subfolder support is part of this Wave, so although it won't be turned on right away, it's coming soon.
2) You actually will be able to selectively forward emails in the new version. Go to the Options page, then to Manage Rules. Click New to create a new rule, enter the criteria to match, click the "Forward to" button, and then enter the email address where you want the emails forwarded.
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bradavon
May 19th 2010
3. Thanks Mary.
I didn't know Gmail can do that. I didn't mean folder support though but subfolder support. I don't believe that's coming, unless you know better.
The nice thing about Labels is you can put e-mals into multiple labels, without having to create duplicate e-mails.
Personally I cannot stand the Gmail interface, it's so basic and cluttered. Labels are nice but it annoys me you cannot turn conversation view off, particularly when it regularly gets it wrong. Having Hi in the subject, doesn't mean it's the same conversation!
I get around this by using a combination of IMAP in Outlook/HTC Desire.
If Hotmail would only support subfolders, I'd likely switch. Especially as (like you say) Exchange ActiveSync is "finally" coming.
It's a well written article. Thanks.
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marybranscombe
May 19th 2010
2. @bradavon - yes you can forward mail from Hotmail automatically. What you can't do is have Hotmail selectively forward specific emails to another account the way you can with Gmail, so if you want TechRadar's Weird Week In Tech to get forwarded to your work mail, but not other mail from TechRadar, Gmail can do that but Hotmail would forward everything from everyone.
there's absolutely folder support; you can see the folders in the screenshot, just above the Quick view pane on the left. You can 'sweep' newsletters or any other message into folders automatically. It gives you about the same result as labels in Gmail (and in my opinion it's a lot easier to use but YMMV of course).
This review was twice the original planned length and I know I still didn't fit in everything ;-)
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bradavon
May 18th 2010
1. Unless I misunderstand, you can forward mail to another account from Hotmail.
Hotmail is also getting Gmail's "Conversation thread" view (but it can be switched off). No Gmail Label support though.
Facebook integration is coming to, so you can see your Facebook friends in Hotmail contacts.
Still no subfolder support though! It's been my "must have" feature for so long now. It's such a basic feature. I've got a complicated folder structure and it's simply not suitable having a single folder structure.
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