How to Delete Hotmail Account Permanently in 2025?
So you have decided to change your email address, and to fully transition, you must delete Hotmail account permanently. The problem is you don’t know where to begin, and some users aren’t even sure if their Hotmail is still active or not.
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The key thing to consider is that Hotmail is part of the M365 environment. So closing a Hotmail ID means cutting ties with the Office 365 cloud. If you are ready to do this, then let’s begin.
Want to Delete a Hotmail Account Permanently? Cancel All Subscriptions First
You don’t want to end up paying for something you won’t be using. Plus, we need to cancel the subscriptions separately because, for some reason, Microsoft does not end the subscription on its own. So you will be charged for a ghost account.
Although you will find most of the subscriptions on the https://account.microsoft.com/services page. For some niche pages that are not listed there, you will have to go to that specific service page.
Check the official guidelines to cancel a Microsoft 365 subscription
Once this is done, move on to the next phase. That is dealing with any Azure tie-ups you might have with your existing Hotmail account.
Clear All Current Business or Organizational Services Before Deleting the Hotmail Account
Even though a Hotmail account is used in a personal capacity, there can be cases where you have used this account for business or organizational services. It is important that you deal with these connections prior to closing the account.
This is because when you close your account, you also lose access to these services in the Azure Portal.
Visit the Azure Portal, log in with your Hotmail ID, and sever all ties to your account.
However, please keep in mind that the Azure portal may not have the complete list of all services. You must do a detailed external diagnostic as well.
Don’t Leave Any Pending Balance in a Hotmail Account
It is important that you use up any and all of the remaining balance in your Hotmail account.
Most of the time, Microsoft won’t allow you to get a refund or transfer your funds to a different account. You can delay your decision to delete your Hotmail account permanently for some time. Till you clear the remaining Microsoft or Xbox gift card balances.
To see if you have any money left in the Hotmail account.
Visit https://account.microsoft.com/ and select the Payment options tab. Also, use this opportunity to unlink any payment options, like your credit card.
Likewise, go to https://secure.skype.com/portal/overview and check for remaining credits that you might have within the Skype subscription and use them up as well.
It is important that you take such safety precautions; this is because it will still take a minimum of 30 days for your account to truly be deleted. If during that time your credentials leak or your account gets compromised, then your private information may get into the wrong hands.
These are all server-side connections you should watch out for. One other critical connection that users forget about before deleting their Hotmail account is Reset Protection on Windows devices.
Remove Hotmail Account on Local Devices
If you use this particular Hotmail account as your main jailbreak tool for your devices, such as XBOX, Surface laptops, etc., it is important that you change it before terminating the account.
Check out how to remove an Office 365 subscription from a PC to learn more.
Otherwise, you risk making your devices unusable.
In the https://account.microsoft.com/ portal, switch to the Devices tab and unlink. Unfortunately, there is no direct way to transfer this role to another account from the web portal. You must add the new account for every device.
Set Up A Message For Your Contacts
When you delete a Hotmail account permanently, it is not just you who gets affected. Every person who has kept your email as a contact will get a non-delivery notice.
That is why it is a best practice to inform your contacts, plus anyone else that might message you. However, don’t think that you will have to send every person a different email; you can utilize Outlook’s Auto Reply option to do this for you.
Here is a sample email draft you can use.
Sometimes users say that the out-of-office message is not working in Outlook. You can use a different Outlook, like web, desktop, or classic.
Although deleting a Hotmail account is permanent, it is not immediate. The earliest possible time your account will truly close is 30 days after you submit a request. During this time, you may receive critical emails. So to ensure that you don’t lose out on important conversations, it is recommended that you set up mail forwarding to multiple users (including your new account)
After this is done, the next step is to safely store all important conversations that are there in your Hotmail.
Back Up Hotmail Account Data Before Deleting Your Account
This is perhaps the most important stage during account deletion. That’s why we recommend that you back up using the best tool out there. Which is none other than the SysTools Hotmail Backup software.
With an advanced yet simplistic UI, the tool is tailor-made to handle all requests and can quickly create a copy of your Hotmail mailbox in the offline drive of your choice.
The tool has many unique facilities, like adding a date filter, up to four different output types, delta download, and much more.
Here is the list of steps you take to use this tool.
Step 1. Launch the tool and select the endpoints (Hotmail + Output Format of Your Choice).
Step 2. Mark the workloads (emails, contacts, calendars) and apply a date filter.
Step 3. Validate Hotmail account credentials.
Step 4. Browse for a location to keep the Hotmail data.
Step 5. Fetch Workload Folders.
Step 6. Preview, Select, and Start Backup.
This was the end of the prerequisites; now, let us get to the main act.
How to Delete a Hotmail Account Permanently Step by Step
Step 1. Go to https://account.live.com/closeaccount.aspx
Step 2. Read through the closure checklist. These are the same points we asked you to complete earlier.
Step 3. Use the dropdown inside the *Just in case you… statement to bring the deletion due date closer. By default, it is set to 60 days, but if you want, you can change it to 30 days.
Step 4. Press Next.
Step 5. The screen changes, and you are greeted with a checklist. Please go through each and every point. You must understand the implications of closing your account.
Step 6. Check all the boxes, then select a reason from the dropdown. The final button remains disabled until you complete this mandatory check.
Step 7. Hit the “Mark account for closure” button.
Step 8. The screen reloads, and you are given the exact expiry date of your account. Press Done.
If you don’t restore your account before the end date, your account will be permanently deleted.
Conclusion
Here we taught you how to delete a Hotmail account permanently. Now, anyone who wants to get rid of their old @hotmail.com address can do so without any trouble. However, before you close your account, it is recommended that you make a safe copy of all emails that are there. This can be done using the professional utility we introduced in this write-up.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Does Microsoft delete Hotmail accounts permanently without warning?
Microsoft, like many other email service providers, has introduced an automated expiry date for accounts that haven’t been logged in for two years or more. If your Hotmail account belongs to this category, it will be permanently deleted, and you won’t be able to salvage any data.
Q. Are there any alternatives to deleting a Hotmail account permanently?
Yes, you can also transfer Hotmail emails to another account or just delete Hotmail emails to free up space in your account and continue using it.
Q. I see a “preserve my HealthVault service data” option while closing my Hotmail account. What is it?
The HealthVault service was a digital data storage vault offered by Microsoft, last active six years ago in 2019. It has since been deprecated. As the HealthVault service is not available anymore, you don’t need to worry about it. So you can skip that step.