Hotmail
Ranked 16 of 17 email services by recommenders
Free Microsoft email account with a long history, though critics most often report account lockouts, wiped mailboxes, and messages that never reach Hotmail inboxes.
Free Microsoft email account with a long history, though critics most often report account lockouts, wiped mailboxes, and messages that never reach Hotmail inboxes.
30 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 6
- criticize it
- 24
- approval share
- 20%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 6 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.2 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Accounts locked out or wiped
“someone, only knowing my user account name (which was the same as my email address), locked me out of my own account”
Comment from 30 Mar 2026 in “Recover Apple Keychain” “Suddenly MS demanded 2FA to the alternate mail that I didn't have access to anymore”
Comment from 2 Jun 2026 in “The newest Instagram "exploit" is the goofiest I've seen” “anyone who had a legacy skype/hotmail account basically got locked out”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “People inside Microsoft are fighting to drop mandatory Microsoft Account” - Comment from 5 Aug 2026 in “Xbox goes down. You can't play games you own on disc”
- Comment from 25 Dec 2025 in “Google is 'gradually rolling out' option to change your gmail.com address”
- Comment from 8 Apr 2026 in “Veracrypt Project Update”
- Comment from 7 Jan 2026 in “Everyone hates OneDrive, Microsofts cloud app that steals and deletes files”
- Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “Users fume over Outlook.com email 'carnage'”
Mail to Hotmail addresses not delivered
“The only problem I have is with MS, almost always with hotmail addresses.”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Gmail AI gets more intrusive” “they silently drop a large portion of messages with a Hotmail destination”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Sending DMARC reports is somewhat hazardous” “Microsoft refuses to deliver legitimate emails to hotmail.com addresses”
Comment from 16 Apr 2026 in “FSF trying to contact Google about spammer sending 10k+ mails from Gmail account” - Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Is it still worth pursuing a software startup?”
- Comment from 24 Jan 2026 in “Bye Bye Gmail”
Unreliable after move to Windows
“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”
Comment from 28 Apr 2026 in “Ghostty is leaving GitHub” “HoTMaiL had a long time to become a competitive product, but it just blew it over the course of a decade.”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “How Will OpenAI Compete?” “It was fine running on FreeBSD/Solaris. Microsoft didn't need to switch to windows for no good reason.”
Comment from 16 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft turns to AWS as GitHub faces AI capacity crunch”
Other email services people recommend
The four most recommended other email services, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fastmail | 388 | 95 | 80% | 13 | 5 yrs90 owners | Approved |
| Gmail | 295 | 797 | 27% | 12 | 20 yrs58 owners | — |
| Proton Mail | 196 | 222 | 47% | 13 | 3 yrs29 owners | — |
| Tuta Mail | 49 | 17 | 74% | 13 | — | Approved |
| HotmailThis page | 6 | 24 | 20% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
31 of the 33 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“This created so much pain for some non-technical people I know”
“They really should have evaluated a little better how they determined”
“They wiped my original account clean, no ifs no buts.”
“I lost out on subsidized housing because of Hotmail, but even to this day I still regularly get obvious spam.”
“the benefit is that your emails drop to almost zero”
“Gf just logged in to hotmail without knowing her password because of a popup”
“Hotmail was an unusable product”
“Microsoft constantly deactivated my hotmail account due to no usage”
“I lost my Xbox account because they shutdown hotmail”
“they decided to wipe people's Hotmail accounts”
“It was fine running on FreeBSD/Solaris. Microsoft didn't need to switch to windows for no good reason.”
“Suddenly MS demanded 2FA to the alternate mail that I didn't have access to anymore”
“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”
“Microsoft refuses to deliver legitimate emails to hotmail.com addresses”
“MS found the safest way to keep me secure was to wipe my account.”
“someone, only knowing my user account name (which was the same as my email address), locked me out of my own account”
“anyone who had a legacy skype/hotmail account basically got locked out”
“They wiped all the emails from my 25 year old Hotmail account.”
“HoTMaiL had a long time to become a competitive product, but it just blew it over the course of a decade.”
“who use some RBL that run as a racket”
“I have had a few problems with Microsoft in the past but contacting them”
“It would never reach the inbox, it wouldn't be in the junk folder”
“only prblem is delivery to some MS hosted services (usually hotmail)”
“then Hotmail stopped working so she couldn't use email anymore”
“It gets way worse after you log in”
“they ask ridiculous things like, what emails are in the inbox”
“Microsoft at some point required you to "login" once every 30 days”
“How else do you explain Teams and the Hotmail UI?”
“they silently drop a large portion of messages with a Hotmail destination”
“hotmail limits you to 4mb”
“The only problem I have is with MS, almost always with hotmail addresses.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.