It is a service that was launched in the late nineties and transformed how email service was perceived. It helped free people from having to pay for internet subscription services to access an email inbox. With it all one had to do was have access to the world wide web; this enabled one to open up free accounts with it that could be used to conduct correspondence with others anywhere in the world.

Hotmail was soon acquired by Microsoft. At the time was taken up, it had gained popularity and had about eight million or more subscribers. By the time Microsoft made it available through localized servers in different parts of the world, it had gained thirty million and more subscribers in a time span of two years.

The domain was consolidated in different ways by Microsoft. It was initially made part of the MSN domain after which it became part of Microsoft Live services. The final stage of integration came from when the email was integrated along with other email and account services of Microsoft. With the integration under Outlook, which is the new web based email service launched by Microsoft; there are new features and inbox layout characteristics that one can avail of:

• Users can make use of alias based multiple accounts.
• They can use features such as Sweep which helps to organize clutter in a single sweep, categorize emails and set up Instant actions for different kinds of emails that come into one’s inbox.
• The change started to take place in 2012 and was completed in 2013. The existing accounts of email users were moved to Outlook domain that did not disturb the email correspondence saved in such accounts as well as other features and data such as contacts, calendar events and so forth.
• With the transition of email onto Microsoft’s Outlook domain, the Office 365 was the base platform that allowed new calendar layouts, a filtering service that helped to organize clutter and had different theme designs that could be incorporated for one’s inbox.
• Users found their contacts, calendar events and emails saved as before, but the organizational layout was different.
• The security features of it were upgraded as the two step verification feature was activated in all Microsoft accounts. As a result, the users need to update details like an alternate email account, a phone number or download the authenticator app on their phone to use the two step verification feature. This helps to make login to one’s account secure and easy for passwords to be retrieved in a secure manner.
• There is an active view feature that allows email users to view the contents of their email directly and be able to interact with the contents. Hence, if photo attachments are present, one can see them as previews through active view. With partnerships with services like LinkedIn, Flickr, YouTube and others, when the attachments are of such services, the contents are easy to view. Updates can be checked for popular social networking accounts and one can follow conversations, post replies and comments as they see fit.
• Integration with Twitter and Facebook accounts allow one to receive updates from such accounts and not have to visit these sites separately to view updates or to reply or make comments or posts.
• The integration of Office Online is another advantage offered in the new inbox. With the Office integration one can easily share documents, spreadsheets and presentation files; they can be created and edited on any computer as long as they are saved in one’s inbox.
• Skype is another integrated feature of the new inbox. It is easy to simply pull up the application that is part of the inbox interface and start a conversation; one does not have to get Skype separated on their desktop.
• A sweep is a handy feature that allows users to put aside large emails, delete unnecessary ones which are moved to specific folders with a single action. Custom message rules can be set up for the sweep function to be carried out on certain messages and at a certain interval of time.
• Quick view and aliases are other handy and novel features of the new inbox. You will be able to create additional emails with aliases as well as use the quick view feature to shortlist emails of certain categories quickly.

The above points are some of the salient new features that one can enjoy with the new Hotmail inbox interface.