Changing my Primary Microsoft account e-mail

guywinfield · 21 Apr 2016

Hello everyone,
I have had a Hotmail account for around 8 years now and it is the hub of all my Microsoft apps (Office, Facebook, Xbox, Windows Phone ..etc) but it has come to an unmanageable point. The e-mail address I have being using for this Hotmail account is linked to everything.
I would like to remove the Hotmail e-mail address I have so that I can have a new outlook account, starting afresh from the years of junk that has been accumulating uselessly in my e-mail. This of course affects everything, because even though as i don't use the Hotmail e-mail it lingers everywhere plaguing my notifications (continuous notifications on my laptop, phone ..etc).
So I would love to create a new Outlook account which I can use a working e-mail but also transfer all of my apps that I have from the Hotmail account (Office, Xbox live, Windows Phone..etc) to my new Outlook account. I've tried a few things but have been very cautious because I don't want to lose my apps, especially seeing as I have paid for things such as Office.
Please help because I am desperate to have a functional Microsoft account !
Many thanks

RWOne · 21 Apr 2016

How to Change Microsoft Account Email Address

guywinfield · 21 Apr 2016

I've been on there already but it is still unclear

guywinfield · 21 Apr 2016

Is it just a case of changing my primary alias then deleting the old one ?

I wasn't sure about this before because of all the things I've paid for

ARC1020 · 21 Apr 2016

guywinfield said:

Is it just a case of changing my primary alias then deleting the old one ?

I wasn't sure about this before because of all the things I've paid for

Yeah, pretty much. Add a new outlook.com alias, make that the primary Microsoft Account address, then delete the old email address. It will take a while for it to update on all your devices though (I've had it take about a week or so for it to finally update itself and even then the last time I couldn't be bothered to wait so reset my phone instead of waiting for it to update).

From https://outlook.com/ go to the cog in the top-right, then Options > Aliases: manage or choose a primary

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Also, make sure you update your details on all online accounts you have that are using that old email address, because your old email address maybe made available again for someone else to register after 30 days. If they register that address, then they will be able to carry out password resets and gain control of those online accounts that you haven't changed the email address on.

What I'd probably do is set up your new Outlook.com alias and make it the primary address, however keep the old Hotmail account alias for 6 months or so purely for the purpose of seeing what online accounts you have that are still using that old email address (that way you know which online accounts you still need to update your email address on).

So that emails that are sent to your old address are kept separate from your new email address, create a new email folder on Outlook.com (you still can't do this directly in the Windows 10 Mail app), then create a rule so that emails sent to your old address go into their own separate folder.

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Here are couple of tutorials:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/42022-microsoft-account-aliases-add-remove.html
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/42098-microsoft-account-aliases-change-primary-alias.html