Directly login to Hotmail inbox (Sign in to email messages)
As you now know from having read earlier tutorials like Hotmail Sign in, whenever you login to your Windows Live Hotmail account, what happens next depends on a variety of factors; you learned, for example, that you can directly sign in to your Hotmail calendar by bookmarking (adding to your favorites) a special page containing the default calendar view for your profile. In this tutorial, we will show you two ways in which you can sign in to your Hotmail inbox directly, either by customizing your Windows Live profile, or by using a nifty trick which is very easy to implement!
Sign in to your Hotmail inbox and emails
Follow one of these methods to directly end up inside your inbox after you login to your account:
- The first possibility is to tweak your actual Windows Live Hotmail profile so that it automatically brings you to your inbox and emails after you sign in; but this is not always the desirable choice, since your preferences may depend on the computer you are using. If you want to always automatically login to your inbox, then see how to sign in to the Windows Live homepage instead of your Hotmail inbox: once configured, this setting will affect your Windows Live profile, regardless of the computer you are using to check your emails.
- If you want to keep your options open, however, and sometimes login to your inbox, and others to the Windows Live homepage or other screen (like the Hotmail Calendar), then you need to proceed as follows: whether you are logged in to your Windows Live account or not, the Hotmail sign in screen will always remember the page or resource you were trying to access: in other words, if you are signed in, you will automatically be redirected to the page of your choice (the one you typed inside the address bar, or accessed from a bookmark/favorite).
- If you are not signed in, Hotmail will give you a chance to enter your credentials (email address and password). If you supply the correct login information, it will automatically send you to the bookmarked page in question. All you need to do is leave the setting untouched, so that Hotmail keeps bringing you to your Windows Live home screen by default, and also bookmark the URL (internet address) in your address bar when you are inside your inbox:
- Using this approach, all you need to do to login straight to your Hotmail inbox is to use the bookmark from your favorites - otherwise, the Windows Live homepage will load!
Tip: You can change this setting at any time to revert to the default behavior: note that it will not impact email programs you may use to check your Hotmail account (like Windows Live Mail), who will still load their default screen or email folder.
New Hotmail, MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail & Live email are all referring to the same free webmail service offered by Microsoft and Windows Live Team (works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X). Microsoft Corporation, Apple, and other companies own the copyright or trademark to these and other terms mentioned.