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Accounts & setup
Create a Free Hotmail Account
About three minutes, no payment card, and no expiry. One thing to know first: new sign-ups no longer get a @hotmail.com address, and that matters less than it sounds.
Go to outlook.com and select Create free account. It takes about three minutes and costs nothing, permanently. You will finish with a working mailbox, 15 GB of email storage, and free browser versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
- You cannot choose a @hotmail.com address any more. New sign-ups are issued @outlook.com. Hotmail and Outlook are the same service; only the name changed.
- Free means free. No trial, no card, no expiry. Paid tiers exist and are entirely optional.
- You do need to sign in at least once every two years or the account is treated as inactive.
Before you start: decide the address you want and two alternatives. Good addresses are taken, and the sign-up form is a poor place to be inventing one under pressure.
- New accounts get @outlook.com. A @hotmail.com address can no longer be created.
- Addresses are never recycled. Once an address has existed, it cannot be claimed again by anyone, including you.
- Set up recovery during sign-up, not later. Later almost never happens.
- Sign in once every two years or the account is considered inactive.
Can you still get a Hotmail address?
Not a new one. Microsoft retired Hotmail as a brand and folded it into Outlook.com, so every new sign-up is issued an @outlook.com address. This disappoints people, and it is worth being clear about rather than letting you discover it three screens into a form.
What has not changed matters more:
- Existing @hotmail.com addresses still work, indefinitely. Nobody is being migrated off them.
- It is the same mailbox, the same inbox, the same sign-in system. A Hotmail address and an Outlook address are handled identically.
- Mail sent to either arrives the same way. There is no functional difference to defend.
If you specifically wanted Hotmail for nostalgia, that option is gone. If you wanted it because you believed it was a different or better service, it never was.
Creating the account, step by step
About three minutes. The only step people get stuck on is the address itself.
- Go to outlook.com. Type it into the address bar yourself rather than following a link from an email or an advert. Select Create free account.
- Choose your address. Type the part before the @. If it is taken you are told immediately. The domain dropdown offers outlook.com and, in some regions, hotmail.com for existing-brand continuity, but availability varies and you should not count on it.
- Set a password. Use a password manager and generate one. This is the single decision on this page most likely to cause you a problem in two years.
- Enter your name. This appears on outgoing mail, so use what you want recipients to see.
- Enter country and date of birth. The date determines whether the account is treated as a child account. If it is, a parent or guardian must sign in to complete setup.
- Solve the puzzle. A short image or audio challenge confirming you are not automated. It is not testing you; if it fails, request another.
- Add recovery details when prompted. Do this now. See below for why the option you are offered has changed.
The address is permanent in one direction. You can add extra addresses to the account later and even change which one you sign in with, but the original is never released back to the pool. Choose something you would be content to have on file for years.
What if every address you want is taken?
Outlook.com has hundreds of millions of accounts and every short, plain address went years ago. Worse, addresses are never recycled. Microsoft states that an address used for an account cannot be reused even if that account was closed long ago, so you are competing against every account that has ever existed, not just the live ones.
| Approach | Example shape | Worth it? |
|---|---|---|
| Add a middle initial | firstmlast | Yes. Reads naturally and stays professional |
| Separate words with a dot | first.last | Yes. Dots are permitted and readable |
| Add a real location or role | firstlast.leeds | Reasonable, but ages if you move |
| Append your birth year | firstlast1994 | Works, but publishes your age on every email you send |
| Append random numbers | firstlast8842 | Last resort. Hard to dictate over the phone |
| Deliberate misspelling | frstlast | Avoid. You will spend years correcting people |
Say the candidate out loud before committing. If you cannot dictate it over a phone line without spelling every character, it will irritate you for as long as you own it.
Setting up recovery, and what changed
This is the part everyone skips and later regrets, and the standard advice for it is now out of date.
You can no longer add a phone number as a verification method. Microsoft states that "for increased security, you can no longer add a phone number", and that it has begun phasing out SMS for authentication and account recovery on personal accounts. Almost every guide still tells you to add one. Ignore that advice; the option is not there.
The methods you can actually add are an email address, an authenticator app, and a passkey using your face, fingerprint or device PIN. You can hold up to ten in total.
- Add at least two. An authenticator app plus a second email address. Losing one then is not losing the account.
- Do not use the new account as its own recovery address. If you are locked out of it, you are locked out of the recovery route too.
- Set the authenticator app up on the day. It survives losing your phone number, changing carrier, and travelling.
If this is already too late and you are locked out of an existing account, our password and recovery guide covers what actually works, and what the recovery form is really scoring.
What do you actually get for free?
More than most people expect, and the storage numbers are commonly misreported.
| What | Free tier | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Email storage | 15 GB | Separate from cloud storage below. Attachments you send count against the other one |
| Cloud storage | 5 GB | Shared across OneDrive files, photos and Outlook attachments |
| Office apps | Browser versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint | Genuinely free, not a trial |
| Ads in the mailbox | Yes | Removed on paid tiers. This is how the free tier is funded |
| Aliases | Multiple addresses on one account | Useful for separating sign-ups from real correspondence |
There is no trial period and no card required. Paid tiers add storage and remove ads, and nothing forces you toward them.
Will the account expire if you do not use it?
Yes, and this catches people who create an account as a spare. Microsoft requires you to sign in at least once in any two-year period to keep the account active. An account treated as inactive can have its content removed, and because addresses are never recycled you would not be able to recreate it either.
Signing in is enough. You do not need to send anything. If the account exists as a backup or for sign-ups you rarely check, put a calendar reminder somewhere annual.
A dormant account is also harder to recover. The recovery form scores you on details about your own account history. An account with almost no history gives you almost nothing to prove ownership with, which is exactly the trap described in the recovery guide.
Worth doing in the first ten minutes
- Send one email to yourself from another address and reply to it. This confirms both directions work before you rely on it.
- Add the account to your phone while the password is still in front of you.
- Record the address somewhere permanent. Not memory. People genuinely forget which variant they settled on.
- Check the junk folder once in the first week. New accounts filter aggressively, and a wanted message often lands there early on.
- Do not use it as the recovery address for itself on any other service.
Sources
- Microsoft: How to create a new Microsoft accountThe sign-up route, child accounts, and the rule that addresses cannot be reused.
- Microsoft: Storage limits in Outlook.comThe 15 GB mail allowance and how it differs from cloud storage.
- Microsoft: Account activity policyThe two-year sign-in requirement.
- Microsoft: Security info and verification codesWhich verification methods can be added, and the statement that phone numbers can no longer be.
- Microsoft: Sending limits in Outlook.comDaily send limits that apply to new accounts.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I still create a new @hotmail.com email address?
Is an Outlook.com account genuinely free?
How much storage does a free Outlook.com account get?
Do I need a phone number to create a Microsoft account?
What happens if I never use the account?
Can I change my email address later?
Why You Can Trust This Guide
MailFixly publishes plain-English fixes for email account problems. Every step is checked against the provider's current process and updated when their interface changes.
- Independently written. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Microsoft.
- No credentials collected. Always sign in on Microsoft's own pages, never on a third-party form.
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- Last reviewed: .