Microsoft Outlook Email Problem

Question

I recently decided I would try to use the Microsoft email. I am having issues with the name that shows up as well as not being able to receive emails at all. My email shows up as some insanely long username, I did pick a name for the email but and it registers when I am in other email forms it shows up as an option. Just not able to make it the primary email , (See the name that I chose). I have asked around, I have looked it up numerous times. I paid for the windows 11. Not being able to use the email as an option is kind of insane.

Please if anyone knows what is sounds like I am doing wrong I am all ears.

Answer 1

Hello

Any chance you use a third party email address as your Microsoft account username, such as a gmail.com or a yahoo.com address?

When your Microsoft account uses a non-Microsoft email address, it does not have its own email functionality. The actual sending and receiving of emails still happens through your third party email provider. As a result, when you go to Microsoft's email platform to use the email service, which is outlook.com, it will show a placeholder email address with some random number/******@outlook.com.

To give your Microsoft account proper email functionality, you can create a Microsoft-based email alias and set it as the primary alias. Here is how:

Go to https://account.live.com and sign in to your personal account.

Click on "Your Info," then choose "Sign-in preferences," and select "Add an alias."

Choose to create a new alias. It will allow you to create one that's outlook.com.

After creating it, set it as your primary alias.

Answer 2

The symptoms match a known Outlook.com behavior where the account appears as an address like outlook_[long series of letters and numbers]@outlook.com, and mail does not work correctly.

This usually happens when:

• A non‑Microsoft address (for example, from another provider) was registered as the Microsoft account sign‑in, or
• There are multiple aliases on the Microsoft account and the non‑Outlook.com address is set as the primary alias.

There are two supported ways to fix this:

1. Set up the mailbox in Outlook manually as IMAP or POP
   1. Close Outlook.
   2. Press Windows key + R, type outlook /profiles and select OK (note the space before /).
   3. In Choose Profile, select Options > New.
   4. Enter a new profile name and select OK.
   5. Select Advanced options > Let me set up my account manually.
   6. Enter the email address and password, then select Connect.
   7. If setup fails, select Change Account Settings and enter the IMAP/POP and SMTP details from the provider (or from the POP/IMAP reference in the article), then select Connect and Done.
   8. Back in Choose Profile, select Set as default profile, then OK.
   This avoids the problematic outlook_[long string]@outlook.com address and uses the real mailbox settings instead.
2. Change the Microsoft account primary alias to an Outlook.com/Hotmail.com address If Outlook.com is the intended mailbox and there are multiple aliases on the Microsoft account:
   1. Go to https://account.live.com/names/Manage and sign in.
   2. Set an Outlook.com or Hotmail.com address as the primary alias.
      • If there is no Outlook.com/Hotmail.com alias yet, use Add email and a new alias → Create a new email address and add it as an alias, then make that new address primary.
   3. In Outlook for Windows, remove the existing account and add it again following the steps in Add your Outlook.com account in Outlook for Windows.

After either of these approaches, the visible “From” address should be the chosen alias (not the long outlook_[…] address), and mail flow should work normally.

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References:

• Outlook.com email account appears as "outlook_[long series of letters and numbers]@outlook.com" in Outlook for Windows
• Fixes or workarounds for recent issues on Outlook.com
• Fixes or workarounds for recent issues in classic Outlook for Windows