# Hotmail

6 Hacker News commenters recommended Hotmail and 24 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Free Microsoft email account with a long history, though critics most often report account lockouts, wiped mailboxes, and messages that never reach Hotmail inboxes.

## What people warn about

- Accounts locked out or wiped (8 comments): "someone, only knowing my user account name (which was the same as my email address), locked me out of my own account" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47579382)) "Suddenly MS demanded 2FA to the alternate mail that I didn't have access to anymore" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48367310)) "anyone who had a legacy skype/hotmail account basically got locked out" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47551034))
- Mail to Hotmail addresses not delivered (5 comments): "The only problem I have is with MS, almost always with hotmail addresses." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45858282)) "they silently drop a large portion of messages with a Hotmail destination" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46134117)) "Microsoft refuses to deliver legitimate emails to hotmail.com addresses" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47792778))
- Unreliable after move to Windows (3 comments): "the Hotmail purchase where they tried to move off the BSD servers and ended up with new accounts on the relatively unreliable Windows-based setup" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47941938)) "HoTMaiL had a long time to become a competitive product, but it just blew it over the course of a decade." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47206197)) "It was fine running on FreeBSD/Solaris. Microsoft didn't need to switch to windows for no good reason." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48550864))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Gmail](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gmail.md): 295 recommend
- [mailbox.org email](https://hackerapproved.com/p/mailbox-org.md): 45 recommend
- [Zoho Mail](https://hackerapproved.com/p/zoho-mail.md): 29 recommend
- [iCloud Mail](https://hackerapproved.com/p/icloud-mail.md): 24 recommend
- [HEY email by Basecamp](https://hackerapproved.com/p/hey-email.md): 23 recommend

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://outlook.live.com/mail/)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Hotmail", https://hackerapproved.com/p/hotmail/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).