So, does hotmail still exist in 2026? Short answer: the @hotmail.com address still exists, but Microsoft retired the Hotmail brand back in 2013. This guide breaks down exactly what happened, what still works and how to keep your old Hotmail account active.
Does Hotmail Still Exist? The Short Answer
Microsoft retired the Hotmail brand in 2013, so technically does hotmail still exist? Only as a domain. Your @hotmail.com address still works fine. Hotmail’s entire system is now in Outlook.com with all emails, contacts, and calendar information. Different name on the door. If you type hotmail.com into your browser’s address bar and go there, it will redirect you to outlook.live.com. This has happened for over a decade. So it depends what you mean by “still exist.” The service is alive. The name is not.
Does Hotmail Still Exist as a Brand? What Actually Happened
Hotmail was not originally Microsoft’s; Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith founded it in July 1996. The founders picked the name HoTMaiL because HTML uses capitalization, and Microsoft acquired the service in December 1997, when it had 8.5 million subscribers, for approximately $400 million. By the time Microsoft shuttered this brand in 2013, it had grown to over 400 million. It wasn’t a shutdown. It was a rebrand. Outlook.com left preview mode in February 2013. Microsoft later upgraded all Hotmail accounts to Outlook.com, completing the migration in May. Microsoft deleted no emails. Nobody’s address stopped working. The interface changed. So did the backend. And the name itself changed. The accounts stayed. What Microsoft built in Outlook.com was a new, faster version of the same service, with integration with Office 365, two-factor authentication, unified inbox support to consolidate all other email accounts into one, and the retirement of the old Hotmail user interface and branding.
Does Your Hotmail Address Still Exist? What Happens to It
It works exactly how it always did (in your Outlook.com inbox, messages to your @hotmail.com address, and replying using your @hotmail.com address), but it looks different. If the above is true, nothing changed from the outside, and @hotmail.com was put in the From. All you have to do is visit the login page at outlook.com instead of hotmail.com, but we automatically direct hotmail.com to outlook.com anyway.
One thing to check
For accounts that nobody has logged into for a long period of time, Microsoft may classify those accounts as inactive and delete them. As long as the user logs in at least every two years through a Microsoft service such as Outlook, Xbox, Teams, or OneDrive, this will not happen. If you have not signed in since before 2024, please sign in or you may lose access.
Can I still create a new Hotmail account?
Not through the standard flow. When you set up a new Microsoft account, it offers you a @outlook.com address. But the @hotmail.com option is still available if you know where to look. When creating the account, select the dropdown near the username. By default, it is an @outlook.com account. Change it to @hotmail.com. In 2026 you can still get a brand new @hotmail.com address this way, though it is not advertised. It is not gone.
What’s New in Outlook.com Changes
The 2013 migration was a major, positive step forward on every front: a new, cleaner interface, far better spam filtering, a cross-platform calendar that finally worked, and integration with what became Microsoft 365. For the average user, it was a good thing. But in 2026, there’s going to be another switch, from classic Outlook desktop to the new web-based Outlook, particularly impacting those who are power users.
Does Hotmail Still Exist Long Term? How to Keep Your Account Active
Three items can prevent Microsoft from marking your account as inactive and deleting it.
Should You Backup Your Hotmail Emails?
If you have years of personal, work, old contracts, family correspondence and other records on your Hotmail account, then the answer is yes. Even though your emails are held by Microsoft, they have been for many years. The changes with respect to offline access and PST management in 2026 should remind you that your terms of service can change. Microsoft may delete your account if you have not logged into it in the past two years, platform policy changes, or a security issue affects your account incident. Any of these could mean lost email if you do not have a local copy. The most reliable option is to export your email to a format you own. Outlook has a built-in export function that exports to a PST file. This is the same format Outlook has always used. From there you can export to MBOX, EML or PDF depending on what you’re trying to do with them. A PST file sitting on your hard drive is yours regardless of what Microsoft does with its platform.
How to export your Hotmail emails
In Outlook for Windows, navigate to File, Open and Export, Import/Export, Export to a file, Outlook Data File (.pst) to select folders to be exported. The PST file save easily to any location available to the user. This is your local backup — no subscription required, no cloud dependency.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does hotmail still exist or is it the same as Outlook?
The two services would become one. Functionally it was, as Hotmail gave way with Outlook.com around 2013; now an @hotmail.com email address is functionally identical to an @outlook.com email address, except that they use a different domain. Features, storage, security and interface are identical.
Does hotmail still exist for old account access?
Yes. Simply go to outlook.com and sign in with your existing @hotmail.com address and password. If you have forgotten your password, go through the account recovery flow at account.microsoft.com. If the account was last signed into two years ago or more (and therefore marked as inactive), Microsoft may have already deleted your account. In this case you may or may not be able to recover it.
Does the @hotmail.com email address still exist and work?
No, Microsoft has not announced that they plan to discontinue @hotmail.com email addresses. Since they are aliases within the Outlook.com email service, they may continue indefinitely. However, since there are 400 million people who had Hotmail, the company is not likely to do this, and has not made any announcements.
Are my old Hotmail emails still accessible?
Yes. If you remained in your account, Microsoft migrated all of your email, contacts, folders and calendar items to Outlook.com during the 2013 migration. Nothing of yours disappeared in the rebrand. Your old emails would only be gone if you’d deleted them, or your account stopped working for inactivity.
In 2026, you can create a new @hotmail.com email address.
You can. When creating a Microsoft account at signup.live.com, the default username will be @outlook.com. This you can change. If you wanted a new email address with the Hotmail domain, you could change it to @hotmail.com. While no longer advertised, the feature is still an option.
How to recover an old Hotmail account that has been inactive for years
Should the account still be active, log into it at outlook.com, update your recovery information, and turn on two-factor authentication. When the account is gone due to inactivity, contact Microsoft Support at support.microsoft.com, as those accounts often come back if the deletion happened recently.
Conclusion
So, does hotmail still exist? Not really as a brand — Microsoft renamed, rehoused and now runs it on better infrastructure than it ever had as Hotmail. Your @hotmail.com address still works. Your old emails are still there. Different interface, faster back end, different name on the door: it is, after all, Outlook.com. But Sabeer Bhatia’s 1996 baby, HotMail (the caps referring to the HTML it was built on), is still alive and well in 2026. It’s just wearing a different set of clothes. The only question you’re supposed to ask here is not whether does hotmail still exist as a brand. It’s whether your account is still active. If you have not signed in, that is the first place to start.