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How do I sync outllook.com contacts with Thunderbird?

  • 4 replies
  • 6 have this problem
  • 6 views
  • Last reply by Matt

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Hello!

I am a big fan of Mozilla and love using Thunderbird. However about a year ago I starting using Outlook.com (previously known as Hotmail.com) as my main email address. I had to stop using Thunderbird because it would appear that Outlook.com did not support IMAP but rather only POP services. I use to have gmail so everything worked out fine before.

Now I am using Windows Live Mail via Windows Live Essentials and I don't really like it. I want to switch back to Thunderbird. Outlook.com syncs my mail perfectly now because they added IMAP functionality. However I can't seem to find help/information/an add-on about syncing my Outlook.com contacts with Thunderbird. I can't use an email client that can't sync my contacts... It seems silly to me if I can't keep my contacts synced on all devices. So can anyone shine a light on this for me? Is it possible (and if so how) to sync Outlook.com contacts with Thunderbird?

Notes: 1. I am talking about Outlook.com webmail and not the Outlook Windows application. 2. I want to sync my contacts not just import.

Also curious side note: Will mozilla ever release a mobile version of Thunderbird? That would be amazing!

Any and all help is appreciated! LeThieu92

Hello! I am a big fan of Mozilla and love using Thunderbird. However about a year ago I starting using Outlook.com (previously known as Hotmail.com) as my main email address. I had to stop using Thunderbird because it would appear that Outlook.com did not support IMAP but rather only POP services. I use to have gmail so everything worked out fine before. Now I am using Windows Live Mail via Windows Live Essentials and I don't really like it. I want to switch back to Thunderbird. Outlook.com syncs my mail perfectly now because they added IMAP functionality. However I can't seem to find help/information/an add-on about syncing my Outlook.com contacts with Thunderbird. I can't use an email client that can't sync my contacts... It seems silly to me if I can't keep my contacts synced on all devices. So can anyone shine a light on this for me? Is it possible (and if so how) to sync Outlook.com contacts with Thunderbird? Notes: 1. I am talking about Outlook.com webmail and not the Outlook Windows application. 2. I want to sync my contacts not just import. Also curious side note: Will mozilla ever release a mobile version of Thunderbird? That would be amazing! Any and all help is appreciated! LeThieu92

All Replies (4)

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1, No and probably never for the contact sync. I base that on the fact no one has yet written a contact sync for Hotmail. I have no idea why. Given there are multiple ones for Google. A large part of the problem is Microsoft and their continual refusal to use open protocols. Instead relying on proprietary solutions like exchange activsync, which require third parties to acquire licenses.

2. There is a mail app in Firefox O/S which one of the developers is looking at releasing stand alone as a personal project. As I understand it, it is like most mobile apps. Fairly basic.

I was doing a little reading in relation to this and it appears outlook.com contacts are automatically synced to windows contacts in windows 8. Can you confirm this?

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outlook.com/Hotmail contacts are automatically synced with the People app in Win 8 (and Windows Phone 8), so they are accessible from the Mail app. They are not, however, synced with the Contacts folder.

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Thank you Matt for answering my questions. It's not the answer I was hoping for but oh well. Microsoft is very disappointing in their lock down of everything. I guess I could always switch to gmail again to get that functionality but I don't really like gmail.

As for the mobile mail app, I am hoping they do release it as a standalone app. I like supporting Mozilla by using it's products. A great organization.

I do use Windows 8, and I have tried the Windows 8 Mail app. It's works fine and syncs everything well. I just really prefer desktop apps like Thunderbird or the Windows Live Mail app from Windows Essential.

Maybe one day Mozilla will come out with their own web based email domain and will work with Thunderbird flawlessly!

Again THANKS!

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Thank you for that sfhowes, it is unfortunate but something I am coming to expect.

This process has had me playing with this add-on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/tzpush/ which does active sync. So far I have not had it working, but it shows promise. My problem I think is I do not have the right server name. If I get it working I will post back.