Sepero
04-20-2004, 09:40 PM
This text will teach you how to turn your hotmail account into a Virtual popmail account with the programs "mozilla" and "gotmail". A variation of this method may also work with Thunderbird, mutt, or many other popmail clients. I have only tested it with Mozilla.
Before you begin, make sure you have Mozilla and gotmail installed. Also, I recommend setting up your outbound(smtp) server in Mozilla before you begin this text.
1) Open Mozilla Mail.
2) Select File> New> Account
3) The New Account wizard should appear. Select Email account and press next.
4) Type in your Name and your Hotmail address. Press next.
5) Select POP server. For the Incoming server, type any fake server like "mail.fake". Press next.
6) Enter your User name. This is used to send mail. Put in a fake name if you don't need a name and pass to send mail. Press Next.
7) Enter the name Mozilla should use for this account. Press next.
8) Congratulations... Uncheck "download messages now" and click finish.
Ok, we're almost there.
Before you go on, you should test what you have so far. Try sending a test email and make sure it shows the correct "From:" address(your hotmail address). After you're done with that, we need to setup a way for Mozilla to read your mail.
Mozilla obviously doesn't have the built in capabilities to download from your Hotmail inbox, so we have to use an external program for that. This is where the program "gotmail" comes into play. Gotmail is able to download your hotmail inbox to a format that is readable by many email programs.
We will be using a script to activate gotmail. After gotmail is finished retrieving your mail, it will put the mail in Mozilla's inbox. YOU will NEED to EDIT parts of THIS SCRIPT so it works with your setup.
Save this script in your home directory as "hotmail2mozilla.sh".
#!/bin/sh
# hotmail2mozilla.sh v0.0.2 by Stephen Pinker 04-20-04
# Your Hotmail user name (leave off the "@hotmail.com" part)
# vv EDIT HERE vv -example: username=flyguy
username=
# Ask for password
echo "Type in your hotmail password: "
read password
# Retrieve mail
# Note: You may want to take off "--only-new" for the first time you run this
# script, if you also want to retrieve the mail that you've already read before
gotmail -u $username -p $password --folders "inbox" --mark-read --only-new ||
exit 1
if [ -f Inbox ]
then
# Save mail to your Mozilla Mail Inbox
# vv EDIT HERE vv -example: cat Inbox >> ~/.mozilla/default/1qwz0n8j.slt/Mail/mail.fake/Inbox
cat Inbox >> ~/.mozilla/
# Now clean up and alert the user
rm Inbox
echo "You've got mail"
else
echo "No new mail"
fi
# End Script
After you have correctly edited this script, double check that everything is right. ;) Finally you have to make the script executable. Type this on the commandline:
chmod 755 hotmail2mozilla.sh
That's it! Gotmail does have an option to delete the old mail from your hotmail account, but this script does NOT do that. I do not recommend adding that option("--delete") until you have familarized yourself with the way the whole setup works. Until then, you will have to log into hotmail.com periodically to delete old mail.
Whenever your ready to get your new mail, just execute the script:
~/hotmail2mozilla.sh
Enjoy!!!
Before you begin, make sure you have Mozilla and gotmail installed. Also, I recommend setting up your outbound(smtp) server in Mozilla before you begin this text.
1) Open Mozilla Mail.
2) Select File> New> Account
3) The New Account wizard should appear. Select Email account and press next.
4) Type in your Name and your Hotmail address. Press next.
5) Select POP server. For the Incoming server, type any fake server like "mail.fake". Press next.
6) Enter your User name. This is used to send mail. Put in a fake name if you don't need a name and pass to send mail. Press Next.
7) Enter the name Mozilla should use for this account. Press next.
8) Congratulations... Uncheck "download messages now" and click finish.
Ok, we're almost there.
Before you go on, you should test what you have so far. Try sending a test email and make sure it shows the correct "From:" address(your hotmail address). After you're done with that, we need to setup a way for Mozilla to read your mail.
Mozilla obviously doesn't have the built in capabilities to download from your Hotmail inbox, so we have to use an external program for that. This is where the program "gotmail" comes into play. Gotmail is able to download your hotmail inbox to a format that is readable by many email programs.
We will be using a script to activate gotmail. After gotmail is finished retrieving your mail, it will put the mail in Mozilla's inbox. YOU will NEED to EDIT parts of THIS SCRIPT so it works with your setup.
Save this script in your home directory as "hotmail2mozilla.sh".
#!/bin/sh
# hotmail2mozilla.sh v0.0.2 by Stephen Pinker 04-20-04
# Your Hotmail user name (leave off the "@hotmail.com" part)
# vv EDIT HERE vv -example: username=flyguy
username=
# Ask for password
echo "Type in your hotmail password: "
read password
# Retrieve mail
# Note: You may want to take off "--only-new" for the first time you run this
# script, if you also want to retrieve the mail that you've already read before
gotmail -u $username -p $password --folders "inbox" --mark-read --only-new ||
exit 1
if [ -f Inbox ]
then
# Save mail to your Mozilla Mail Inbox
# vv EDIT HERE vv -example: cat Inbox >> ~/.mozilla/default/1qwz0n8j.slt/Mail/mail.fake/Inbox
cat Inbox >> ~/.mozilla/
# Now clean up and alert the user
rm Inbox
echo "You've got mail"
else
echo "No new mail"
fi
# End Script
After you have correctly edited this script, double check that everything is right. ;) Finally you have to make the script executable. Type this on the commandline:
chmod 755 hotmail2mozilla.sh
That's it! Gotmail does have an option to delete the old mail from your hotmail account, but this script does NOT do that. I do not recommend adding that option("--delete") until you have familarized yourself with the way the whole setup works. Until then, you will have to log into hotmail.com periodically to delete old mail.
Whenever your ready to get your new mail, just execute the script:
~/hotmail2mozilla.sh
Enjoy!!!