Microsoft Recycling Inactive Outlook.com Email Addresses

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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May 9, 2000
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Use it or lose it has been Microsoft’s approach to unused Hotmail accounts for quite a while and now has been extended to cover all unused Microsoft email accounts that haven’t been accessed for at least 270 days. Microsoft has recently added a new twist by also beginning a recycling program for those unused email accounts.

When the account becomes inactive "the email account is automatically queued for deletion from our servers. Then, after a total of 360 days, the email account name is made available again," according to an email statement from Microsoft.
 
Did that work out well for Yahoo? Great... I liked Outlook.com, but I won't trust anything other than making a junk only account. Use it for entering contests and the like.
 
This wouldn't bother me if they would make it easy to bulk forward the mail to another account.
 
This wouldn't bother me if they would make it easy to bulk forward the mail to another account.

Yes, but if someone were to re-use your old address, they would then be getting any email that was sent to you after they re-opened it. Unless you changed your address everywhere, of course. Then, they could do a reset password using email and change your password for site(s) and have some fun. I still get emails from things I signed up for/ordered long ago.
 
Did that work out well for Yahoo? Great... I liked Outlook.com, but I won't trust anything other than making a junk only account. Use it for entering contests and the like.

Yeah, it worked for Yahoo.

I got my old e-mail account back.

The catch: You lose any and all old e-mails on that old account.
 
its a good idea for those who never use the address and just use references as placeholders *[email protected] for example*

then again i'd be pissed if i was away from my computer for a year only to find out everything had been removed lol
 
That would suck. My Xbox 360 live account uses my hotmail account.
 
Cool. I'm going to search for dormant Outlook.com Paypal addresses that are still linked to bank accounts and start resetting passwords. It's time I update my wife's wedding ring and slap some 20s on my car.
 
Cool. I'm going to search for dormant Outlook.com Paypal addresses that are still linked to bank accounts and start resetting passwords. It's time I update my wife's wedding ring and slap some 20s on my car.

It's the email equivalent of scratch-and-win. Who knows what kind of prizes you may get with your recycled email account ;)
 
I think there should be some system in place to do this, but I don't think this is the right way to go about it.

Also, 270 days is WAYY-YYYYY too short, needs to be 2+ years at minimum I think.
 
so all the emails I've recieved in the last 20 years claiming that MS will shut down my account are true?? :D:D
 
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