How to Migrate from Gmail to Outlook.com

Hotmail, one of the world’s most popular webmail services, was recently christened as Outlook.com. With the rebirth came new features and better services including connecting to contacts from Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn from one address book, chatting with Facebook friends from the Inbox, and built-in tools such as SkyDrive and Office for quicker collaborations. There’s heaps of advantages in using Outlook.com and if you are an avid Gmail user, you can consider migrating to Outlook.com to access and use Gmail from within one Inbox. In this tutorial, I’ll show you how to migrate from Gmail to Outlook.com.

How to Migrate from Gmail to Outlook.com

1. First of all, you will need an @hotmail, @msn, or @live.com account. If you already have one, simply sign in to Outlook.com to get started. If you use a Gmail address to access Microsoft services such as SkyDrive or Xbox, that’s fine too! Just use those credentials to sign in to Outlook.com. If you don’t have an account, then just sign up for one at Outlook.com.

2. Now that you’ve signed up, its time to configure Gmail to forward email messages to Outlook.com. To do this,

a. Sign in to Gmail using your Google credentials. Now click the Wrench icon and choose Settings.

b . Select the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab.

c . In the Forwarding Section, click Add a forwarding address.

d. In the pop up box that opens up, enter the Outlook.com email address and click Next.

e. In the next screen, click Proceed and then OK to confirm the forwarding address.

3. Head on back to your Outlook.com Inbox. You will find an email from Gmail. Open up the email and click the confirmation link.

4. Now head back to your Gmail account Settings page and refresh it. You will notice an option to forward a copy of your incoming mail to your Outlook address while retaining a copy in Gmail. Select the option and click Save Changes.

5. The next step involves enabling Outlook to use your Gmail address when you send email messages from Outlook. This step is not required if you signed in to Outlook.com with your Gmail address.

a. In Outlook.com, click the Wrench icon and then click More mail settings.

b. In the Managing your account section, click Sending/receiving email from other accounts.

c. On the next screen, in the You can send mail from these accounts section,  click Add another account to send from.

d. On the next screen, in the Add an email address text box, enter your Gmail address  and click Send verification email.

e. Go back to your Gmail account, open up the new verification email and click the link to confirm that you own the account and want to send messages from it.

6. Now it’s time to import your Gmail contacts to Outlook.com.

a. Click Outlook, at the top left corner of the screen and from the drop-down gallery, choose People.

b . In the Add people to your contact list section, click Google contacts and follow the wizard to complete the import of Gmail contacts.

You are now all set to use Outlook.com to receive and send Gmail messages.

If you wish to import older messages from Gmail to Outlook.com, you can use a tool called TrueSwitch.

Just fill in the required details and you’re all set:

• In the Other e-mail text box, enter your Gmail credentials.
• In the Hotmail e-mail text box, enter your Outlook credentials.
• Uncheck all options except Copy your e-mail messages.
• Click Copy to Outlook.com or Hotmail.

Do you plan to migrate from Gmail to Outlook.com? The process might appear to be long, but is pretty easy and you can keep track of Gmail messages right from Outlook. Sounds like a good deal?