By default, Windows Live Mail checks for new messages on the mail server when the program starts, and every 10 minutes thereafter. But the initial checkup can be turned off, and the interval changed to anything you like, as you'll learn in this tutorial. We'll also show you a couple of quick ways to improve your productivity with keyboard shortcuts. And you'll learn how to check individual email accounts - very useful when you've setup lots of different addresses!
Tip:to temporarily stop checking for new emails, use the "Work Offline" functionality: it forces Windows Live Mail to work as though none were available, without affecting your actual internet connection. Click on the "Work offline" button under the ribbon's Home tab (see screenshot). You can manually check for messages at any point; to resume working normally, click on that same button, which now reads "
Go online".
Click on the "Windows Live Mail
" menu (top left button), and go to Options > Mail: 
All options are listed under "Send / Receive Messages" (middle) :
10 minutes. Turning this option off will prevent Windows Live Mail from automatically checking for new mail. Keeping it enabled, you can set the interval between 1 minute and 480 minutes (only check for emails every 8 hours).The "If my computer is not connected at this time
" setting comes from the old days of dial-up internet, and was first included in Outlook Express. It remains useful in some cases: if you are working with a laptop on a 3G network connection, you may want to control when your computer goes online. Second, when you are working offline with Internet Explorer, Windows Live Mail won't automatically connect if this option is enabled: 
• "Do not connect
" (default) shows the message and dialog above when Windows Live Mail starts.
• "Connect only when not working offline
" will go online unless you manually chose to stay offline.
• "Connect when working offline
" will always try to establish a connection.
Regardless of your send/receive options, Windows Live Mail lets you check for new messages for each account individually: this feature comes in handy once you've added multiple email accounts (checking each server for new mail can then become quite time consuming). Click on the dropdown arrow below the Send/Receive button, and click on the name of the email account you want to check: only that mail server will be queried!
Note: clicking on "All email accounts" in the dropdown checks for new mail on each email account, but ignores updating RSS feeds you may have setup. Clicking the main button itself (envelope icon), will refresh everything, not just email accounts (same as clicking "Update all" in the dropdown).
By default, Windows Live Mail sends emails as soon as you push the Send button; but you can force it to leave unsent messages in the Outbox, and only send them once you click send/receive, or once it reaches its next send/receive timer (whichever comes first).
Select the Send tab in the Options dialog - the "Send messages immediately
" checkbox is checked. Uncheck it to wait before sending messages. Click OK to save your settings. 
Here's a useful trick: when Windows Live Mail seems to hang, and doesn't seem to be sending or downloading messages, click on the activity panel (lower right corner, in the status bar). A progress window will open, and allow you to optionally to cancel the current operation(s), by clicking on the Stop button: 
The activity monitor will give you a breakdown of the current operation, plus completed and pending operations at the bottom (notice the green checkmarks). 
You may need to click on the "Details" button to display finished and ongoing tasks.