Since my article on trying to get your hotmail account on your mobile, I found a hack that seems to work and is free, I should call it a workaround and not a hack as your not doing anything illegal. However I guess once MS find out this will probably stop working.
The issue is with a free account you cannot forward to anything but .hotmail, .msn or .live email accounts.
The hack is:
- Go to options and subscribe to 'Mobile alerts for new messages', this will lead you through a wizard which requires a mobile number that you have to verify, just follow the steps its simple. Once you are signed up and back, just click on finish this process. If you have already signed up in the past then you can skip this step. I have included a screenshot of what the mobile alerts screen should look like once it is setup.
- Then goto Options --> 'Forward mail to another e-mail account' and now you can set to any email address you want. And you can unckeck 'Keep a copy of forwarded messages in your Windows Live Hotmail inbox' if you do not want to maintain two copies of the same emails.
- MOST IMPORTANT go back to 'Mobile alerts for new messages' and select 'None - Never send me mobile Alerts' (So you will not get charged for anything)
Please also read my post 'Setup Hotmail on your iPhone or any other Email Client' for more detailed instructions, you can insert this hack into those steps so it does not cost you anything.
21 comments:
this doesn't work...when i click on the "mobile alerts" part, it just saves the info...it never goes to a "wizard" of any kind
Could you email me navigation steps, or even screenshots, I have got it working for 4 people to date myself and those all worked fine.
gfreeks@gmail.com
On second thought, that might even mean you have sometime on the past set this up.
In your case you could just try going to forward email and enter a non microsoft email address and see if it works.
no go on that...it give me the error that you can't forward to a non blah blah blah...any ideas? i'm using a mac but i've tried it on a pc as well...
Can you let me know once you click on the Mobile Alerts in options what appears their for you?
If it says never alert, then try switching to to something where it is going to send you an alerts, then save and try the forwarding, then come back to mobile alerts and set it back to never.
hi , it seems that i am unable to receive the confirmation code( the 4 digits ) ... what can i do ?
Did you try the troubleshooter link on the verfication page?
I have found something interesting though, whilst trying to figure out greg's problems, I created a new hotmail account, and I gave it the same mobile number I used for my real account, and the verfication never arrived. So I gave it another mobile number that I knew was not registered and I got the verification code. Might not be related to your issue, but it seems like you cannot link the same mobile number to multiple accounts.
Greg,
Another thing I noticed, on the mobile alert page, you have to goto finish the process and save any setting, never if you don't want to be charged. As long as get this page it should work.
I just tried it on a dummy account and it worked fine.
i followed the trouble shoot and nothing ... to test i tried http://info.mobile.msn.com/en-us/default.aspx and i got a text from msn .
so it is the nr ...
now what can i do ?
can i use my friends nr for my acc?
when i choose mobile alerts for all new messages, i have 2 choices, save and cancel...if i do either then it takes me back to the options screen...
b23,
Yes you could try another number, just remember to switch it back to never send me alerts once the forward setting is done, else you'll be charging the other number.
Let us know if it works out.
Greg,
I have updated the article to include a screenshot. If you see that screen, then your mobile alert is setup. After that you can move on to step 2 and that should work, it did for me. If that does not, then I am not sure I can help any further and am not sure why it has not worked for you. Like I said I just tried the same on a dummy account and it worked again.
i tried with another nr .... nothing
i guess it depends of the hotmail version or i dont know what
is good to see that it works for somebody ... i hate paying for stuff to these companies that already make billions a second :)
b23,
Maybe you should email hotmail to say you are trying to use mobile alerts but cannot verify your mobile as no PIN is being sent. I know it might do you any good, but worth a try I think.
Good Luck, do let us know if you ever solve the mystery.
thanks for the help...i'll see what i can get done...
Greg,
No problems, hope it works out, please post back if you solve the mystery
guess what i got it fixed
i sent an email to Hotmail mobile support and i got this ....
Based on our initial investigation, there appears to be a maintenance issue from one of T-Mobile's tower.
This issue has already been identified by the product team as high-priority and we want to assure you that we are working seriously to have this feature back as soon as possible. Due to the complexity of this issue, we currently project weeks of testing for our engineers to narrow down the exact cause and resolve the issue.
I would like to sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this has brought and we would like to thank you for your patience in the matter.
next thing i go with the steps again , get the code and forward my email to my mac account
thank you much
b23,
Excellent, I am glad it helped :-) and you got it working.
Greg,
I was having the same issue. The mobile alerts page looked as if I had already signed up, i.e. looked like gfreeks screen shot. I clicked on "To make changes to your Windows Live Mobile account, go to Windows Live Mobile." and signed up following the wizard. Once I did that I was able to follow the rest of the steps and fwd my hotmail.
gfreek thank you so much for this simple work-around!
Hmmm, no joy here. I set up my alerts, confirmed the code, and when I tried to forward got the no-can-do message.
This account is about fifteen years old, though, maybe that has something to do with it.
Thanks for the tip! Ultra-helpful
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