Windows Mail, which is the successor to Outlook Express, and is the default email client in Windows Vista, is a great free email client for Windows. In this article we will see how to set up a POP3 email account for Windows Mail. While most of the POP3 services are paid services, Gmail provides POP3 free of charge, and hence in this guide we will see how to set up your Gmail email account to work with Windows Mail using POP3.
Start Windows Mail from the Start Menu. Go to Tools > Accounts. The Internet Accounts screen appears (Image 1). Your existing and
predefined accounts will be listed here. Now to add your Gmail account. Click on 'Add'. The Add account wizard appears. Select type of Account as 'Email Account' (Image 2) and click Next. The wizard will prompt you to supply the display name you want to associate with the email account (how you want your name to appear in the from field of the outgoing messages). After you enter the display name, click Next.
In the next step the wizard will prompt you to supply your email address, enter your Gmail email address and click Next.
The next step is to set up the e-mail servers. The wizard asks you for the 'Incoming mail (POP3 or IMAP) server' and the 'Outgoing mail server (SMTP)' name. In this example we are using a Gmail account with POP3 access so we need to enter the POP3 server name of Gmail which is 'pop.gmail.com'. Similarly enter 'smtp.gmail.com' as the outgoing mail server (Image 3). Make sure to check the box 'Outgoing server requires authentication' and click Next.
In the next step, you need to supply Windows Mail with your email username and password. You can leave the password field blank if you prefer to enter it every time you access your email account. The wizard will inform you that your email account is successfully set up. Select 'Do not download my e-mail at this time', and click Finish.
Now bring up the Internet Accounts screen again. You can see a 'pop.gmail.com' account in the Internet account list. Select it and click on Properties. Navigate to the Advanced tab (Image 4) and enter 465 in the box corresponding to 'outgoing mail (SMTP)' and check the box 'This server requires a secure connection (SSL)' in the 'Server Port Numbers' section. Again, check the box 'This server requires a secured connection (SSL).' next to 'Incoming mail POP3'. It should automatically update 995 in the box next to it. You're done setting up your Windows Mail. Wait- you are not done yet. You still have to set up your Gmail.
Well, there is not much to do in Gmail. All you need to do is to enable POP. Just log in to your Gmail account and click on Settings. In the Gmail settings page, click on 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab (Image 5) . Select 'Enable POP for all mail (even mail that's already been downloaded)', or 'Enable POP for mail that arrives from now on', depending on your choice, and Click 'Save Changes'. That's it, your Gmail account has been set up to work with Windows Mail. Click on Send/Receive to download or send mails with your Gmail account from Windows Mail.