I understand that you’ve come to this page looking for instructions on how to delete a Hotmail account, but before you jump straight in, please consider the following:
- Unless you download email and then take a backup, deleting the Hotmail account will remove all stored messages and information of your contacts from the web server.
- The Hotmail email address will cease to exist which means messages sent to it will be returned to the sender.
- Instead of deleting the account, I suggest you change the Hotmail email address. This involves creating a new email account to which messages from the old one will be forwarded. Please refer the link for step by step instructions.
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Important note: You can delete a Hotmail account only when you can access it; i.e. sign in successfully and get to the inbox. If you cannot log in to the account, just forget about it and it shall be removed after about 90 days due to inactivity.
Sign in to delete your Hotmail account
In order to close the Hotmail account you are required to first sign in at the email service. Go to the Hotmail homepage, enter your login details (username and password) and come to the inbox. You should see the list of email messages in the center of the page and email account folders on the left. Near the “sign out” link (located at the top right of the page), you’ll find your name as well as any photo/picture you had added to your profile. Click your name and then select the “View your account” option from the drop down menu.
You’ll now be taken to your account page through which you can change various aspects of your account including the password. Notice the last “Close account” link? Click on it to proceed. Your account hasn’t been deleted yet!
In the next screen you shall be told the “consequences” of deleting your Hotmail email account – ignore them if your mind is made up. By the way, you can still cancel the process and go back. As mentioned at the start, once you close this account the contents of your Hotmail account – emails and contacts data – will be removed and the Windows Live registered information will be permanently deleted.
Just to make sure you know what you are doing and to protect your account from any malicious attack, you are required to verify the Hotmail login details by entering your password again. You’ll appreciate this if you realize that anyone can delete your account if you left it running (signed in) on a computer, right? This means without the password you will not be able to delete the Hotmail account.
Anyway, coming back to the issue at hand, hit the “Yes” button if you really want to end your association with the Hotmail account.
