not receiving emails to alias account

Question

i have been trying to recover a live.longwood.edu account from my college days. i had it set up on my old phone. but lost access a few months back. didn't have authentication app set up on the new phone so had to go through the account recovery system. got that back but when i tried to log into the amil through outlook it would not let me do so. said i had to set up and alias account. i have created said alias but i am not receiving emails to it from the old account. i can send and receive from the new alias. has anyone ells had this issue. the ai was useless both on the phone and threw text

appreciate any help you can give

Answer 1

@J T 885 said

i tried to log into the amil through outlook it would not let me do so. said i had to set up and alias account

I have not ever seen the Account recovery process require that you create an alias for an account to be able to recover it.

It does require you to have an active Microsoft email to be able to receive recovery updates. But this would be a separate account with no connection to the account you are trying to recover.

What does the Account Sign-In Helper say about the status of the account you tried to recover?

• In a Private/Incognito browser session, open: https://aka.ms/sign-in-helper
• Scroll down to "Choose how you normally sign in, then enter your details"
• Click "With an email address"
• Enter your email address and click [OK]

Answer 2

The live.longwood.edu address and the new alias are separate addresses, even if they are on the same Microsoft account. Adding an alias does not pull or forward mail from the old address automatically.

Key points from the available information:

1. Aliases share the same account, but not the same address
   • Email addresses and phone numbers on a Microsoft account are called aliases and share the same password, contacts, storage, and settings, but each alias is its own email address for sending/receiving mail.
   • Mail sent to the old live.longwood.edu address will not automatically arrive in the new alias’s inbox unless that old address is still an active alias on the same Microsoft account and is being used as the delivery address.
2. If the old address was removed as an alias, it is permanently gone
   • If an alias is removed from a Microsoft account, it is permanently deleted and cannot be added back or reused.
   • In that case, mail sent to the old address cannot be delivered or forwarded to the new alias.
3. College/organization addresses are often controlled by the school
   • For addresses like live.longwood.edu, the university typically owns and manages the mailbox. If the school has disabled or deleted the account (for example, after graduation or inactivity), Microsoft alias changes on a personal account will not restore it or redirect its mail.

Given the behavior described:

• The new alias can send and receive mail normally, which confirms it is working.
• No mail from the old live.longwood.edu address is arriving, which is expected if:
  • The old address is no longer an active alias on the Microsoft account, or
  • The university has disabled/deleted that mailbox, or
  • The old address was never actually an alias on the same Microsoft account, but a separate institutional account.

Practical next steps based on the documented behavior:

1. Check whether the old address still exists as an alias on the Microsoft account:
   • Sign in to the Microsoft account “how you sign in” page and review the list of aliases.
   • If the live.longwood.edu address is not listed, it has either never been an alias on this account or has been removed (and cannot be restored as an alias).
2. If the old address is missing or removed
   • It cannot be re‑added as an alias if it was deleted.
   • Mail sent to that address cannot be delivered to the new alias.
   • For a university address, only the university’s IT can confirm whether the mailbox still exists on their systems; if they have deprovisioned it, it is not recoverable through Microsoft consumer tools.
3. If the old address still appears as an alias
   • Confirm that it is not blocked for sign‑in and is still allowed to be used.
   • Even then, mail sent to that address should arrive in the same mailbox as the alias; if it does not, the most likely cause is that the university account and the personal Microsoft account are actually separate and not linked as aliases.

There is no supported way, in the documented behavior, to have a deleted or institution‑owned address automatically deliver mail into a new personal alias once that original address has been removed or deactivated.

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References:

• Help with "phone number is already used" in a Microsoft account
• How to add an email address or phone number to your Microsoft account
• Can't send or receive email in Outlook.com
• MSN email issues - Microsoft Q&A
• Attempting to access old email - Microsoft Q&A