Microsoft Corp. will soon let users of its Hotmail service store 5 gigabytes of photos and other e-mail messages, more than double the previous limit. This offering from the company doubles the existing capacity offered by Hotmail which happens to be one of the most widely used services in the world.
Of course, only a small number of Hotmail users will ever approach that threshold, a reality the software maker acknowledged in a blog post this week outlining the storage boost and other upgrades to the free, Web-based service.
Microsoft has also listened to its customers and has decided to reduce the dimension of the header in the user interface, providing users with more space for mail-previews. The company has also decided to increase the time a junk or deleted mail stays on their servers.
Other new features that are expected to be launched on Hotmail include better performance, increased mail retention, contacts de-duplication, mail forwarding for combined accounts, meeting requests and better spam filtering.
According to Microsoft, the new and updates Hotmail features will reach users gradually over the weeks to come.
Microsoft's new limit will leapfrog Google Inc.'s nearly 3 GB. Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL e-mail services already include unlimited free storage.
The software maker also said that Hotmail will get faster in coming weeks thanks to performance improvements. E-mail users will also see a new "report phishing" button and a way to combine duplicate contacts in the address book.
When Hotmail users log in, they currently see a page filled with news headlines and photos from Microsoft's MSN sites — not their inbox. Soon, Microsoft will let users choose to go straight to their e-mail and skip the extra content.
Microsoft has also listened to its customers and has decided to reduce the dimension of the header in the user interface, providing users with more space for mail-previews. The company has also decided to increase the time a junk or deleted mail stays on their servers.
Other new features that are expected to be launched on Hotmail include better performance, increased mail retention, contacts de-duplication, mail forwarding for combined accounts, meeting requests and better spam filtering.
According to Microsoft, the new and updates Hotmail features will reach users gradually over the weeks to come.
Microsoft's new limit will leapfrog Google Inc.'s nearly 3 GB. Yahoo Inc. and Time Warner Inc.'s AOL e-mail services already include unlimited free storage.
The software maker also said that Hotmail will get faster in coming weeks thanks to performance improvements. E-mail users will also see a new "report phishing" button and a way to combine duplicate contacts in the address book.
When Hotmail users log in, they currently see a page filled with news headlines and photos from Microsoft's MSN sites — not their inbox. Soon, Microsoft will let users choose to go straight to their e-mail and skip the extra content.
