A generation ago, AOL, Ask Jeeves, GeoCities, and Hotmail were all the rage. Surprisingly, of those 1990s vintage platforms, only AOL still exists in anything like its original form. Ask Jeeves is now Ask.com, and GeoCities is simply gone.
As for Hotmail, it's still around, but not in the same form as you remember it. Hotmail is now part of Microsoft Outlook, an email, calendar, contact, and scheduling software suite favored by many businesses. And while you can still get and use a Hotmail email address, don't bother trying to do so at Hotmail.com — you'll just be redirected to Outlook, which was once part of Microsoft Office, now known as Microsoft 365.
When was Hotmail launched and what were its early days like?
Hotmail was first launched in the summer of 1996, and it was bought by Microsoft the following year, as the company coasted on the success of its massively popular Windows operating system. Microsoft ultimately rebranded Hotmail as MSN Hotmail, though that name was rarely used by the public.
Despite being one of the most popular email platforms of the late 1990s and early 2000s, Hotmail was also plagued by problems.
In 1999, for example, it came out that any account could be logged into using the word "eh" as the password, prompting a hurried security fix. And then, two years later, hackers found an easy way to extract email from another user's account by creating a URL that included that account's email address.
Still, Hotmail remained popular throughout the first decade of the 21st century, though in the 2010s, Microsoft would merge Hotmail into its new program, Microsoft Outlook.
What happened to Hotmail?
In 2013, Microsoft rolled Hotmail into Outlook and sunset the original email service. But despite being officially discontinued, Hotmail did not in fact go away. You can still use your Hotmail email address and in fact you can log into Outlook with it. You can also log into Outlook with a Live or MSN email address, or of course with an Outlook email.
As of now, Outlook seems like it will not be going anywhere any time soon, so don't worry about yet another change coming. While not as venerable as, say, Microsoft Word, it is a core platform of the company.
Can you still get a Hotmail address?
Yes, you can still get a Hotmail email address, but you will have to access it through the Outlook platform. When signing up, you can choose a Hotmail.com address as your email domain.
How can I access my old Hotmail account?
To recover an old Hotmail account, go to Microsoft's account recovery page, then follow the prompts on screen, which will have you enter an old email account to be recovered as well as a current account to which to send the information.
Keep in mind that if your Hotmail account was totally inactive for more than two years it may have been permanently deleted.
