Windows Mail setup
As we saw in the previous tutorial, Windows Mail comes pre-installed on Windows Vista - this means that you can actually start using Windows Mail right away, without setting up instructions to follow, or manual installation needed. To open Windows Mail without setup, simply click on the start menu, then on All Programs, and then click the Windows Mail icon to launch the program. (If you are using the Vista start menu (as opposed to the classic start menu), you can simply start typing "Windows Mail", and you will see the clickable Windows Mail icon appear at the top, before you are even done typing.)
If you arrived on this page while trying to download Windows Mail on your computer, please refer to our Windows Mail download tutorial.
Windows Mail setup email accounts
The next four tutorials will explain how to setup email accounts inside Windows Mail. Because Windows Mail supports the standard email protocols "POP3" and "IMAP", you can setup your email account from many popular webmail service providers, as you will see.
- Setup Hotmail in Windows Mail (you will first need to create a Hotmail account)
- Setup Yahoo! Mail in Windows Mail
- Setup Gmail in Windows Mail
Note that Windows Mail lets you setup as many email accounts as you want inside it: you could set up an email account for each of these providers, and not have any problem: Windows Mail just checks for new mail on each of the servers, one by one, and then downloads your emails in your inbox.
Regular POP3/IMAP email account setup
It is of course also possible to setup a regular POP/IMAP email account in Windows Mail, if you are not using one of the free webmail providers listed above: this is a route you will use, for example, if you are setting up an email account that comes with your internet service provider (Verizon, Bellsouth, etc.)
Setting up multiple email accounts in Windows Mail
Likewise, when you have setup multiple email accounts, Windows Mail will automatically use the email address to which the email was sent when you reply to emails: in other words, if someone emails you at your Hotmail account, Windows Mail will not respond with your Yahoo! Mail or Gmail acct, even if they were setup before you added Hotmail to Windows Mail.
Actually, setting up multiple email accounts in Windows Mail is a great time-saver, since it means that you do not need to have multiple email programs running all the time in the background just to check emails from different accounts. You just leave Windows Mail running, and it will check for emails for all the accounts you have setup, and let you know when new mail arrives.