Outlook.com (Hotmail) setup with IMAP in the Apple OSX Mail App.

By default if you want to access your Outlook.com / Hotmail or MSN email account in the OSX Mail app you had to do it with POP. Using POP is not ideal as it simply downloads the massage from the Outlook servers. You can not organise your email and sync changes back to Outlook, and between devices such as your desktop pc, laptop and mobile. Although not as good as Exchange Active Sync which is supported by most smartphone and Outlook 2013 on Windows, Mac OSX users can now use IMAP to sync mail to OSX.

Outlook.com IMAP settings:

Incoming IMAP
Server: imap-mail.outlook.com
Server port: 993
Encryption: SSL

Outgoing SMTP
Server: smtp-mail.outlook.com
Server port: 587
Encryption: TLS

Setting up OSX Mail using IMAP for Outlook.com:

Open Mac Mail, from the File menu, choose Add Account then enter your Hotmail, Outlook or MSN email address and password, finally clicking continue.

The account type you need to select is IMAP, you can enter anything you like for the description.

The username is your-email@outlook.com, your password is the password you usually use to sign in to outlook.com unless you have two factor authentication enabled. If you do have two factor authentication enabled you will need to create a unique password for the OSX Mailapp which i will show you how to do below.

For users with two-step verification enabled you must log in to http://hotmailsigninaz.net/ and create a new app password. This app password is what you will use in the OSX Email client, not your actual password.

For incoming mail security tick the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and the authentication type is password:

For outgoing mail security tick the Use Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and the authentication type is password:

When you click continue your account should be setup and working in the OSX Mail app, as can be seen below:

Any changes you make to your inbox will be reflected on other devices your email account is setup on.

That it, you should hopefully be able to access your Outlook.com email account on OSX using an actual email client and not the webmail interface.