Tired of using Gmail and want to make a complete switch over to Outlook.com? With Google recently announcing that it plans on dropping Exchange ActiveSync support for Gmail, which creates a major blow for Windows Phone users, perhaps its time to switch over to Outlook.com. This tutorial will provide you with the necessary steps needed to switch your email and contacts over to Outlook.com/Live. You can also hit the source link below to migrate your Calendar and SkyDrive.
Accessing your Gmail email in Outlook/Live
- To create a new email address, go to http://signup.live.com (note if you have a Windows Phone, you should have one)
- Once you have your new Microsoft account, click the Settings gear at the top right, and click “More Mail Settings”
- Click “Your email accounts”
- Click “Add send-and-receive account”
- Enter your Gmail(or other) information
- Over the course of a few hours, all of your mail should be imported automatically, and you should even be able to “send-as” your Gmail account.
Migrating your contacts to Outlook/Live
- Go to http://gmail.com
- On the left side, click the dropdown that says ‘Gmail’, and click ‘Contacts’
- At the top of the contacts list, click the ‘More’ dropdown, select “Export…”
- Select the contact group, most likely ‘All Contacts’ and then select ‘Outlook CSV’
- Click ‘Export’ and save it somewhere(contacts.csv)
- Go to Sign In
- “Add people to your contact list” should be available, select “Import from file”
- Select the file you downloaded earlier
- Be sure to clean up and duplicate contacts by clicking the “Manage” dropdown on the main People website and selecting ‘Clean up contacts’
