Account Recovery and Deactivation

Question

For a brief summary of what I'm going through; my Instagram account was recently hacked and it seems my only option for recovery is through a Hotmail account I haven't used in years. I don't remember the password and haven't been successful in filling out the form "sufficiently" so here are my questions.

1. I read somewhere that old Hotmail accounts are deactivated and eventually deleted and at that point the domain becomes available again. I'm wondering if this is accurate because I'd estimate that I haven't accessed the account in ~6 years but it definitely still exists
2. How much information exactly is considered sufficient. Since the account is so old there's no way for me to recover "recently" sent emails and subject lines. I do know the account recovery answer but I'm wondering if I'm just wasting my time testing old passwords if just passwords + recovery question isn't "sufficient'

Answer 1

Hello RobynVan

Hi, I'm Karl and will be happy to help you today.

Will start this off by saying right up front that you are going to find this answer frustrating but it's the only one that applies to what you have described.

The rules regarding "old" accounts are as follows

The only way to access an existing account that has not been accessed in the last one year period but within the last 2 years AND is not a deleted account is by knowing the correct password for the account. The Account Recovery form and Password Reset processes are no longer an option in this instance. Also, any data in the account would be purged due to inactivity so even if account could be accessed, it would be completely empty

If the account has not been accessed in the last 2 years, it would be automatically deleted due to inactivity as per the Microsoft Account Activity policy (subject to the exceptions noted). Once an account has been deleted (for any reason), it can never be recovered for any reason by anyone. There are no exceptions to that policy. Microsoft does not recycle email addresses.

Microsoft account activity policy

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/451105...

or as summarized in

Check if your Microsoft account is closed

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/account-bil...

To recap all of the above in a nutshell

#1 - If the account hasn't been accessed in the last 6 yrs AND it actually stiff exists - then you would need to know the correct password for the account. No other recovery options are applicable

#2 - If the account has been deleted (for whatever reason), it is permanently gone and can not be recovered by anyone after any amount of time There are no exceptions to this policy

Also for your information, if you try to create a new account using a deleted email address, you would encounter an error message that the email address is already in use. That is technically correct since every email address is maintained in a database so that it can be checked. What is misleading about that message is that it does not indicate that it involves a deleted email address which causes confusion

Just so there is no misunderstanding, this is a public user-to-user support forum. We're users just like you helping other users. We do not work for Microsoft and have no access to any user account so there is nothing we can do or check from within the forum. We have no input on Microsoft's policies, procedures, or design decisions. Microsoft Support personnel do not staff this forum.

Answer 2

Thank you Karl,

Your welcome

Answer 3

Thank you Karl,

That is indeed frustrating. On the bright side you've saved me a ton of time attempting to recover.

Thanks again