Is there a good Hotmail client for Mac OS X?

I have had an Hotmail account since 1997 (i.e. don't ask me to switch - have hundreds of filters and folders and thousands of contacts) and I recently switched to a Mac and I am looking for a Mac client that would deliver the same functionality as Windows Live Mail did in my PC. Also, don't ask me to forward/import to Gmail. I have tried that numerous times - Gmail fails at importing filter rules or nested folders properly from Hotmail and it also has numerous issues with sync and contacts etc when importing from Hotmail.

The Mail.app only supports POP3 for Hotmail which I hate because it is only local sync - I am looking for either IMAP/DeltaSync/Exchange (i.e. 2-way sync) for my Hotmail to work in Mac. I tried Postbox/Sparrow Lite/Outlook in Mac Office 2011/Thunderbird with webmail plugin/Eudora and none worked. I tried mBox for Mac and it worked great for about 2 weeks and now it stopped working with the new Lion Mail.app update. In anycase, mBox has been out of development since 2009. I looked at IzyMail but I am not willing to pay a subscription - I don't mind paying a one time fee though.

Hotmail used Exchange ActiveSync which works well on my iPhone. Mac's Mail program works with many Exchange servers, so I am really confused why Mac Mail cannot ActiveSync with my Hotmail account which apparently supports Exchange.

I just want a mail client that truly syncs with Hotmail. Information to a POP3 clients flows one way so the Mac cannot update the server with read status, reply status and more.

I am willing to pay for a solution and I just can't find such a software! I am also willing to pay a one-time fee for an IMAP gateway too and I can't find any such thing either.

Is it really that hard to get Hotmail working in Mac?

Pipe your hotmail through a Gmail account, either by forwarding everything from Hotmail to Gmail or by setting Gmail to download your Hotmail using POP.

Configure your Gmail to send using your Hotmail credentials.

Then access your Gmail in Mail.app via IMAP.

Hotmail doesn't have IMAP/Exchange support, it has Exchange ActiveSync support, but only for mobile devices. Everything on the Mac side, even MS's own Outlook 2011, uses POP3 to connect to Hotmail.

You could file a support ticket with the Mbox folks, and hopefully they'll have a timetable for updating their product to work with the new version of Mail.app.

The basis of your question rests on the fact that you're not willing to relinquish your hotmail account. Of course, this may be reasonable because, amongst other reasons, all of your contacts have the email address, you're comfortable with how it works, etc.

There are currently no OS X DeltaSync-based clients, however you could consider building a solution based on jdeltasync.

Given that you're willing to pay to retain your Mac and stay with Hotmail, a different solution which will let you keep your Mac yet give you access to hotmail syncing is a virtualisation product (for example VMWare, Parallels, CodeWeaver) and use an appropriate windows client. The level of integration they offer is pretty good.

Looking to the future, you may want to consider purchasing your own domain name and use it with a suitable mail service (for example, hosted Exchange) and slowly migrating your contacts to your new address. This will ultimately give you more control over your own needs instead of relying on others to provide support for a particular protocol.