Recover old Hotmail emails after converting to outlook

Question

Had to create a new Office 366 account via Outlook. Can't see my old hotmail emails. Can I recover them?

Answer 1

Hi. I'm Brian and I'll try to help.

All Hotmail.com addresses are also Outlook.com addresses. There is no reason to create a new address unless you want to change the domain. That said, it sounds like you created a completely new account. Since it is a separate account, naturally you won't be able to see the Hotmail.com account's email in your Outlook.com mailbox. The proper way to change from an address ending in @hotmail.com to one ending in @outlook.com is to visit https://account.live.com/names/manage using your @hotmail.com address and add a new alias there that ends in @outlook.com. Then both addresses will refer to the exact same account and have equal access to the same data, like email, calendar and contacts. You cannot add an existing @outlook.com address as an alias to another account.

Why not just continue using the @hotmail.com address? You should still be able to log into that account using that address and its attendant password unless you deleted the account.

Answer 2

If you have created a new Office 365 account via Outlook and cannot see your old Hotmail emails, it is important to note that if you have deleted your Hotmail account or its alias, those emails may be permanently lost. Microsoft states that if you remove an email alias that is associated with a Microsoft domain (like Hotmail), it is permanently deleted and cannot be associated with any Microsoft account again.

If you still have access to your old Hotmail account, you can try signing in directly to it to recover your emails. If you have not accessed the account in a long time, it may have been permanently deleted if it has not been used in over two years.

Unfortunately, if the account is deleted, there is no way to recover the emails associated with it. You may want to check if you have any backups or if the emails were stored in a PST file on your computer before the account was changed.

---

References:

• How do I recover my old email messages, my contacts and everything else I had in Outlook?
• Deleted hotmail email address from account - can I get it back?