Email Clients Tutorials
Hotmail Tutorial
Hotmail Inbox
The Windows Live Hotmail Inbox is the most central folder: all emails not flagged as spam (junk mail) are automatically delivered inside the Inbox. The only exception can come from filters you might have setup in your Hotmail account. The Inbox is the folder you most commonly use in Hotmail, since it contains all your mail. This tutorial covers the Hotmail Inbox in details.
Using Hotmail's Inbox
Like other Hotmail folders, the Hotmail Inbox label is in bold font if it contains any new email; if this is the case, it will be followed by a number between brackets, indicating the number of unread emails contained in the folder. (In this screenshot, the inbox contains unread emails.)
Accessing your Hotmail inbox
To view your Hotmail inbox content, simply click on the folder name or icon; both read and unread emails will be displayed. Notice below the toolbar visible from the Inbox:
On the left, Hotmail displays the total number of email messages inside the inbox (including unread messages). On the right, the number of pages of emails in the inbox is displayed; the number of emails displayed per page can be customized, and will be covered in a later tutorial. Each page number is a clickable link that will load the corresponding emails.
Notice how the Hotmail inbox background is darker: this indicates the email folder currently selected. The Hotmail theme used throughout this tutorial is called "Blue" - depending on your settings, colors will vary.
At the bottom of your folder listing, Hotmail displays a list of four buttons: Today, Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. Clicking the Mail button will bring you back to the Inbox, wherever you are.
Though their appearance changes slightly (in Hotmail's Calendar for example), these buttons are visible from all Hotmail panels.
If you are logged into the Windows Live service, clicking the Hotmail button will also bring you straight to your inbox folder.
