Windows Live Mail 2012 end of Outlook support

Martin Brinkmann
May 6, 2016
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Windows Live Mail 2012 users who use it to connect to Microsoft's Outlook email service receive emails from Microsoft currently that state that they won't be able to use the solution anymore come June 30th, 2016.

Windows Live Mail is a free email client by Microsoft that Microsoft made available as part of the Windows Essentials 2012 suite of programs.

It is supported by Windows 7 and newer versions of Windows, and still available for download on the Windows Essentials website.

Windows Live Mail supports web based email clients, RSS feeds and a number of other features that most desktop email programs supported when it first came out.

Windows Live Mail 2012 end of Outlook support

windows live mail 2012

Microsoft explains in the email why Windows Live Mail 2012 users won't be able to synchronize data to update their Outlook (or previous Microsoft accounts such as Hotmail or MSN) using the application.

Windows Live Mail 2012 does not support the synchronization technologies used by the new Outl‍ook‍.‍com. When account upgrades begin at the end of June, you will no longer be able to receive email sent to your Out‍look‍.‍com account in Windows Live Mail 2012

Users are however still able to access their emails on the Outlook.com website. All data remains accessible on the Internet and already downloaded data in the client.

Microsoft recommends furthermore that users switch to the Mail application instead which it launched with Windows 8.

Users who are still on Windows 7 are encouraged to upgrade to a newer version of Windows to utilize the mail application.

If you currently use Windows Live Mail 2012, we recommend that you switch to the Mail app in Windows to‍day. The Mail app is built in to Windows 8/8.1 and Windows 10, and has a more modern design. To begin using it, simply launch the app and add your Out‍look‍.‍com account.

Alternatively, they may take advantage of a one year free subscription of Office 365 Personal to use Outlook 2016 to connect to the account.

What Microsoft fails to mention

windows live mail outlook imap pop3

Windows Live Mail supports three different connection types: POP, IMAP, and Outlook / Windows Live synchronization.

You can configure your Outlook.com account to connect using POP or IMAP instead, and this should still work after June 30, 2016 as Microsoft won't disable POP or IMAP access to Outlook.com as it would affect all third-party clients if they would do so.

If you are using Windows Live Mail 2012 to connect to a Microsoft email account, make sure it is set up to connect via Pop3 or IMAP and you should be set to survive the cut on June 30th.

outlook accounts

To check an existing account do the following:

  1. Select Menu > Options > Email accounts in Windows Live Mail.
  2. Double-click on the email account that you want to check.
  3. Switch to the servers tab.
  4. Make sure Pop or IMAP is selected there.

It seems that you cannot modify an account directly. To add a new Pop3 or IMAP connection click on Add under accounts and follow the instructions.

The information you need are published on this Microsoft support website.

Summary
Windows Live Mail 2012 end of Outlook support
Article Name
Windows Live Mail 2012 end of Outlook support
Description
Windows Live Mail 2012 users who use it to connect to Microsoft's Outlook email service receive emails from Microsoft currently that state that they won't be able to use the solution anymore come June 30th, 2016.
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Ghacks Technology News
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Comments

  1. JMGG said on January 19, 2012 at 8:25 am
    Reply

    You said that Outlook isn’t your main email client, so which is your main one?

    1. BalaC said on January 19, 2012 at 9:42 am
      Reply

      I think its thunderbird

    2. Martin Brinkmann said on January 19, 2012 at 10:15 am
      Reply

      It is Mozilla Thunderbird.

  2. Salaam said on September 24, 2012 at 9:52 pm
    Reply

    Awesome! This actually solved my problem… what a stupid bug.

  3. Claud said on December 19, 2012 at 2:08 am
    Reply

    If this is the same bug that I’ve encountered, there may be another fix: (1) hover over open Outlook item in Taskbar, cursor up to hover over Outlook window item, and right-click; (2) this should give you Restore / Move / Size / Minimize / Maximize — choose Move or Size; (3) use your cursor keys, going arbitrarily N/S/E/W, to try to move or size the Outlook window back into view. Basically, the app behaves as though it were open in a 0x0 window, or at a location that’s offscreen, and this will frequently work to resize and/or move the window. Don’t forget to close while resized/moved, so that Outlook remembers the size/position for next time.

    1. Lynda said on February 12, 2013 at 3:37 pm
      Reply

      THANK YOU Claude!!! I could get the main window to launch but could not get any other message window to show on the desktop. You are my hero!!!!

    2. Chad said on November 20, 2018 at 4:24 pm
      Reply

      Solved my issue! 6 years later and this is still problem…

    3. Ivan X said on January 21, 2021 at 4:50 pm
      Reply

      Fantastic. Thank you. Size did the trick.

  4. Andrew said on October 26, 2013 at 7:06 am
    Reply

    This solved my Outlook problem, too. Thank you. :)

  5. Charles said on December 7, 2013 at 7:23 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much, this started happening to me today and was causing big problems. You are a life saver, I hope I can help you in some way some day.

  6. garth said on November 7, 2014 at 7:13 pm
    Reply

    You are a god – thank you!

  7. Faisal said on February 9, 2015 at 10:09 am
    Reply

    thanks a lot…. work like charm.. :-)

  8. Simon said on March 24, 2015 at 11:36 pm
    Reply

    Yah…thanks Claude. I’ve been having the same problem and tried all the suggestions…your solution was the answer. It had resized itself to a 0/0 box. Cheers

  9. Olu said on April 14, 2015 at 1:35 pm
    Reply

    Excellent post. This had me baffled even trying to accurately describe the problem. This fixed it for me.
    Thank you

  10. Coenig said on July 23, 2015 at 7:36 am
    Reply

    Thanks a lot for the article. Don’t know why it happenend, don’t know how it got fixed, but it was really annoying and now it works :-)

  11. Fali said on January 20, 2016 at 4:19 pm
    Reply

    Thanks a lot. I was facing this issue from past 3 week. I tried everything but no resolution. The issue was happening intermittently and mainly when I was changing the display of screen ( as i use 2 monitors). The only option i had was to do system restore. But thanks to you.

    1. MIki said on January 10, 2019 at 11:54 am
      Reply

      I’ve been tried to sole this problem for 12hours. Your comment about changing the display of screen helped me a lot!! Thanks!!

  12. Christina said on January 20, 2016 at 6:14 pm
    Reply

    Thank you…don’t know why this happened but your instructions helped me fix it. Running Windows 10 and office pro 2007

  13. Oz said on July 22, 2016 at 3:20 pm
    Reply

    Great tip! Thanks!

  14. Tracy said on September 1, 2016 at 4:48 pm
    Reply

    Worked for me, too – thank you!!!

  15. shawn said on September 9, 2016 at 10:25 am
    Reply

    It’s Worked for me, too
    thank you very much!

  16. Jari said on October 31, 2016 at 11:53 am
    Reply

    I had a similar issue with Outlook 2013 on Windows 10 and this helped me to fix it. Thank you very much!

  17. Michel H said on November 30, 2016 at 11:08 pm
    Reply

    Thank you so much. Solved!
    Considering you published this in 2012, incredible not been debugged by Microsoft.
    Thank you again. M

  18. Ziad Bitar said on January 9, 2017 at 2:00 am
    Reply

    This problem was faced by only one user logging to TS 2008 r2 using outlook 2010.The issue was resolved.

    Thanks.

  19. Anonymous said on February 15, 2017 at 5:24 pm
    Reply

    Great tip. Thank you!!!! If it helps, I had to use the Control Key and the arrow keys at the same time to bring my window back into view. Worked like a charm.

  20. Rochelle said on March 6, 2017 at 11:59 am
    Reply

    Thank you, this worked !!!!

  21. anom1234 said on May 20, 2018 at 11:20 pm
    Reply

    Man, you are a fucking god. Thanks a lot, what an annoying bug!!

  22. JC said on October 12, 2020 at 2:14 pm
    Reply

    Awesome, this post solved the issue. Many thanks!

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