Interesting, I got this from hotmail yesterday... they appear to be toughening up their spam filters. Since I get about 20 a day, I can see it needs something doing!
Dear Hotmail customer,
Over the last several months, many of you have given us suggestions about how to make Windows Live™ Hotmail® better.
You told us you wanted junk mail out of your inbox, and a way to block unwanted newsletters.
You asked for the ability to send larger attachments.
You wanted to get through your inbox more quickly, save time and get more done.
You requested a way to view and edit Microsoft® Office Word, Excel® and PowerPoint® documents right from your inbox.
We’ve listened—and we’ve created new features to help you do all of that. Below are details about just a few of the important enhancements coming soon to your inbox.
We’re excited about the changes and hope you will be, too.
Thank you for using Hotmail, for your suggestions, and for helping to make Hotmail the email service that more people use than any other.*
Sincerely,
Dick Craddock
Here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming.
Get junk mail out of your inbox
Keep your inbox free of spam
Using the same Microsoft SmartScreen® technology used in other Microsoft products like Microsoft Office Outlook® and Internet Explorer®, Hotmail is automatically helping to filter out junk mail for you.
Sweep away unwanted email
As you complete email actions like deleting email or moving email into folders, the new Sweep tool will prompt you to see if you wish to automatically apply that action to all similar email in the future.
Save time and get more done
Send hundreds of photos without worrying about size limits
We've built a way to send up to 10 GB of content via a single message—up to 200 photos or 200 files of up to 50 MB in size each. When you hit send, we deliver a nicely formatted email with a link to where the photos are stored on your password-protected Windows Live™ SkyDrive™. Recipients can then easily view your photos as a slide show or download them to their computer.
Smart filters organise your inbox to find the email that matters
Hotmail Quick Views will sort and group email by content or sender into one list in your inbox. Now items like your Facebook updates, or your cable TV bills or just the mail containing photos can be easily sorted with just a few clicks.
View entire email conversations at a glance
With the new Conversation View, you can automatically group all the email you have sent and received on a specific topic together in one view.
Respond to social network notifications without leaving Hotmail
When a friend or family member sends you a link to a YouTube video or a Flickr photo album, you can view it without leaving your inbox. You'll also be able to take actions on shipping notifications as well as social network invites.
Your Hotmail account now gives you free access to
Microsoft Office Web Apps
Open, view and edit documents right in your inbox
Now the Word, Excel and PowerPoint files in your inbox can be viewed and edited without leaving Hotmail. If you need to make edits to an attachment, Hotmail lets you do it from your inbox without worrying about downloading files or installing software. You can even start a PowerPoint slide show and it will include all the animations and transitions.
Share Microsoft Office documents online and work together with others
Just like how you can share large photo albums, Hotmail lets you send large documents and other files via a link—up to 200 files, each up to 50 MB—using online storage, so you avoid clogging up anyone's inbox. And by sending from your Hotmail account, recipients can also use the free Microsoft Office Web Apps to view and edit your document—no matter what email service they use or version of Microsoft Office they have installed.
That’s just a peek at what we've been working on for you. Look for these updates and many more over the coming weeks as we start delivering them to your Hotmail account.
The Hotmail Team at Microsoft
