Hotmail not syncing with outlook

Question

I was able to log in to Hotmail at the beginning of August 2026. A second attempt just a week later rendered an empty account with an outlook address. This is now impacting forwarded email and some device notifications and preventing me from access. I went through this with Google 20 years ago as they merged with products and assorted emails. Seems that the integration is not much better. What do you advise? (I am now using multiple passwords and emails...sometimes successfully, sometimes not, but today, I logged in with the hotmail address to an empty page. void of my hotmail emails.) I suspect that I am not alone.

PLEASE ADVISE me and other readers.

#hotmail

Answer 1

Thanks for the reply. I had already tried the log ins and offs. I had already seen the account a few weeks ago as it should be. Now, when I log in with hotmail address, I get the Outlook account with the hotmail as alias, and the only folder that contained anything was the deleted mail which held about 10 drafts from 2017 and 18. I tried signing out, as well as in via my gmail link to Microsoft, AND my hotmail link. (When one works via Outlook over several decades in various organizations and transfers those accounts to gmail, for example, things get crunchy, but until now, all was good.) NOW, however, per a YouTube suggestion, I created a hotmail account in my Thunderbird client, and was delighted to see that Thunderbird had set up all of the necessary links to facilitate a clean transfer of, yes, all my hotmail emails both from and to.

So, while you did not really solve my problem, I have solved my problem via another site. Your suggestion that alias may be an issue is possible. What must one do to fix that? AND, I would like to know how to see the so-called 'outlook' email account I have that was 'new' in addition to the hotmail alias...both of which seem to reside in the 'hotmail' email account.

Answer 2

Hi MSBS,

Based on your description, this appears more likely to be an account access or alias issue rather than a synchronization problem.

Hotmail and Outlook.com use the same Microsoft email service. If you successfully sign in but see an empty mailbox, it can sometimes indicate that you are signed in to a different Microsoft account than the one that contains your historical Hotmail emails.

I recommend the following steps:

1. Sign out of all Microsoft accounts.
2. Open an InPrivate/Incognito browser window.
3. Sign in using the exact Hotmail address that previously contained your email.
4. Check whether the mailbox still appears empty when accessing Outlook on the web.
5. Verify the account's aliases and sign-in information to confirm that the Hotmail address is associated with the account you are accessing.
6. Search for older messages and review the Deleted Items, Archive, and Junk Email folders.
7. Review any forwarding rules or account settings that may affect message delivery.

If the issue persists, please let us know:

• Whether you can sign in directly with the original Hotmail address.
• Whether the Hotmail address appears as an alias on the account.
• Whether the mailbox is empty both on the web and on all devices.
• Whether you receive any error messages during sign-in.

With that information, we can help determine whether this is an account identity issue, alias configuration issue, or a mailbox-related problem.