Although I know the email addresses, I have completely lost access to them. It appears they've been hacked, and I have failed all attempts through Microsoft's automated questionnaire.
My main concern is that there is info in them that could lead to identity theft and financial fraud. Richard M A lot of people used Hotmail for temporary accounts, or set up accounts that they rarely if ever used. Microsoft only counted "active" accounts and took draconian measures to deal with ones that weren't. If you opened an account and did not use it for 10 days, Microsoft deleted it. If you failed to log on for 30 days, Microsoft deleted your email and contacts, but did not delete the account.
If you logged on within 90 days, you could retrieve your account — and your email address — but not your email. After 90 days, Microsoft deleted the account and eventually recycled the address. I'm confident that all the contents of your two old Hotmail accounts will have been deleted. That's why you can't recover them using the page for Forgotten password or other sign-in problems.
Go to Outlook. If they are still available, grab them. If they are not available, then Microsoft has returned these names to the pool and someone else has taken them. The new owners would see your efforts to gain access as hacking attempts. These new owners will not have access to your old email or contacts, but they will have different security questions, which is why you can't answer them. However, some of your old contacts might still use these addresses.
If so, I would expect the emails to be delivered to what are now the "wrong" people. There's not much you can do about this, except make sure you have sent your current email address to all the people you know.
There is, unfortunately, a potential security problem with recycling email addresses. You need to check the current terms of agreement for Mail. The inactivity clause is under 2. Term and Termination, clause 2. If you use the Premium Service from Mail. However, your account will revert to a free account if you don't stay current on your payments or renewals. That may happen if the credit card you've stored for automatic renewals has expired or been reissued, and you may have ignored notifications about it.
You can easily get into a vicious circle of not checking your Mail. When that happens, you may never see the warning about your account reverting to the free version. You can keep your account active simply by logging in. You can do that from webmail, using another email client such as Thunderbird or their mail app. You don't have to necessarily send or receive mail, but you need to perform a login at the least.
Because the terms of service for Mail. While the current period is six months, it has changed over the years and is bound to change again to keep their storage costs lower and to delete inactive accounts.
If you set up the account simply to have an email address you can use for identification purposes, such as to have multiple Twitter accounts, it can be easy to forget to keep your Mail. You will need to set up a reminder to log in every few months. You can choose to delete your Mail. Select My Account from the Home screen. It is the icon that looks like a person's head and shoulders, near the bottom of the left-hand menu.
A consequence of losing an inactive account or deleting your account is that you have now lost the use of that email address. If you have listed it elsewhere and don't have alternate ways to be reached, you may have really messed things up. Be sure you have other ways to be reached. Actively scan device characteristics for identification.
If I don't use my e-mail, will I lose it? Tip Those who use Gmail , another popular free online e-mail service, will not lose their e-mail unless the account is dormant for nine months.
Additional information How to remove an e-mail contact. How do I delete an e-mail account or address? See the e-mail definition for further information and related links. E-mail help and support.
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