Microsoft tackles 'greymail' with Hotmail update and launches Android app

Microsoft has revealed a number of updates to Hotmail aimed at fighting so-called 'greymail', as well as an Android mobile app that offers push email and synchronised calendars and contacts.

Hotmail group programme manager Dick Craddock revealed the email updates in a company blog post, while the new app for Google's mobile platform was quietly posted on the Android Market.

The app allows Android users to keep close track of their Hotmail inbox and send photos to Hotmail contacts from a smartphone camera.

Meanwhile, Craddock said that the Hotmail anti-greymail updates are the just the first of many updates to come to the tool, and will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

"Seventy-five per cent of email identified as spam by our customers actually turns out to be unwanted 'greymail' that they receive as a result of having signed up on a legitimate web site," he said.

"We decided in our upcoming release to add five new features that help customers take back control of their inbox."

Most significantly, Microsoft has launched a one-click unsubscribe button so that Hotmail users no longer have to go through the sometimes complicated and lengthy process of unsubscribing to each web site where they have signed up to get newsletters.

"Let the site know to stop mailing you, use Sweep to immediately clean up your mail and remove all the old newsletters from that sender, and finally send any new ones that come in to your junk mail until the sender takes you off their list," said Craddock.

Microsoft will also categorise newsletters in the same way it already does with social media updates and shipping notifications, using its anti-spam SmartScreen technology. As a result, Hotmail users will now find all newsletters stored in a separate folder in their inbox.

A Schedule Cleanup feature will mean that Hotmail users can now set their inbox to store only the latest message from particular senders, like shopping sites, or to delete messages after 10 days.

Microsoft has also launched a new flag message capability to track important messages. Flagged message will be 'pinned' to the top of the inbox and stay there while new email comes in.

Finally, in an update similar to Gmail's Label capability, Hotmail users can now create 'custom categories' which can be applied to all future messages from specific senders.