With that background, here are the questions:ġ. So, I opened another account and then another and now have three including the original or at least current account I am using. Apparently MS or someone I had responded to, sold my email address. The reason I have 3 accounts is because I started receiving a tremendous amount of spam.
I have three outlook accounts and Windows 10. Leo: I have read all your replies on the subject I am interested in and no one asked the questions I have. Eventually the email system will learn what is and is not spam to you, and route it to the spam folder automatically.
I don’t recommend this approach, because it’s very likely that you will get important notifications via email for those other services.
How long “eventually” is varies, but it’s often somewhere between three months and a year.
You may even lose your ability to log in to your Windows 8 (or later) PC, if this account is used for that purpose.
This will take you to a page with information explaining what closing will do, and will likely ask you for your password again, to confirm that you are the rightful owner of the account.Ĭlick Next to begin the process. Scroll down to the bottom of that page, and you’ll find the link that you’re looking for. Once verified, you’ll be taken to the “Security Settings” page.
On that page, click on Manage advanced security.Īt this point, you may be asked to confirm that you are the rightful account owner, by entering a code that will be sent to your choice of alternate email address or phone number. This will transition you to your “Microsoft Account” account page. Closing the accountĬlick your account name in the upper right. Thus, if you can’t recover the account, you won’t be able to prove that you are authorized to close it.
That’s one of the “costs” of using a free email account like Hotmail or .Įven if you don’t want it back – you just want to close it so the hacker stops using it – the steps that you need to take to prove ownership are exactly the same steps that would recover the account. I have to say “try”, because once you’ve lost access to a hacked account, there is no guarantee that you can get it back. If you want to close your account because you think it has been hacked, or you can’t log in to close your account, the article Email Hacked? 7 Things You Need to do NOW has the steps that you need to try to take in order to regain access to the account.
If that were not the case, anyone could close the account. You must be able to log in to your account in order to close it. I’d actually suggest that you seriously reconsider closing your account.Ĭlosing your account will not stop spam that looks like it came from the account hackers often fake the “From:” address whether or not the account exists.Ĭlosing your account will not stop your contacts from “being bothered” if they had even brief access to your contact list, the spammers have probably already made a copy.Ĭlosing your account is not guaranteed to cause emails sent to it to bounce back to the sender bounce messages are optional, and many services choose not to send them, to reduce spam.Ĭlosing your account may not even be possible if it’s been hacked, and you don’t have access to it yourself.Īll that being said, if you still want to close it, I’ll walk you through the steps it’s not really that hard.