Live Email Accounts Expire?

I have several Live Email accounts. I was wondering if they expire after a period of inactivity? Some I use weekly, others hardly ever.
Accounts become inactive if you don't sign in for more than 270 days VIA WEB BROWSER or within the first 10 days after signing up VIA WEB BROWSER for an account. 

After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted. Incoming messages will be sent back to the sender as undeliverable.
Your account name is still reserved.

However, if the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted.
If you don't use your Windows Live ID for 365 days, your Windows Live ID will be permanently deleted. .

Outlook.com "ad-free" (paid) accounts do not have the inactivity timeout..
Cat herder
Windows Insider MVP
MVP-Windows and Devices for IT
http://www.zigzag3143.com/

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I signed up for three accounts at Microsoft all on the same day, one year and 5 months ago. 

For each one of these accounts, I used the same phone number for recovery if needed.   I did not come back till five months later, in which then I attempted a password reset via phone number for each of the accounts. This means I exceeded the 10 day sign in requirement via web browser after signing up. While attempting the Phone call process to reset password for the accounts, only two of the three would work.  The third account gave an error-- technical difficulty-try back latter.   All three accounts were not signed in within ten days via Web browser as stated here and yet two were recoverable. The third account has not been touched now for almost 1 year and 5 months and yet, the phone number I used still shows up as the recovery number to reset the password. Upon calling Microsoft for help, no one could help me and I was sent  to the MS website to put in request for technical help and the out-sourced help did not help either and did not know why the error occurred nor did anyone inform me of the things listed on this page an inactive account. 

(Accounts become inactive if you don't sign in for more than 270 days VIA WEB BROWSER )

  • It's been 1 year and 5 months (for one) and 5months for two others

(or within the first 10 days after signing up VIA WEB BROWSER for an account. )

  • 1st attempt for all three accounts was 5 months later and only two were recoverable via phone number reset.

(After an account becomes inactive, all messages, folders, and contacts are deleted. Incoming messages will be sent back to the sender as undeliverable.)

  • Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently--- Emailed tested for the one account as of today, however, if I were to put any info for recovery via the form thru email, the folders and emails would have been deleted and thus reset via form would not be feasible. But, I never used the account to send any message nor create folders, so even a reset via form would not work even if the account was still active if I came back in less than 10 days to sign in.

(However, if the account stays inactive for an additional 90 days, the account name may be permanently deleted.  If you don't use your Windows Live ID for 365 days, your Windows Live ID will be permanently deleted. .)

  • I have not used the third account for 365 days plus another 163 days, which this meets the requirements of an Inactive account and should be deleted by now.   However, when I do a password reset, it shows my phone number but it won't call my house and gives me a technical error message.  When I email this account the email bounces and returns as a bad address. This account should be not long existing. So when I try to sign up using this name, it gives me this error ---Someone already has this email address. Try another name or claim one of these that's available

So according to all that applies to this account being inactive, it has exceeded the limits of 10 days for a return login after signup, exceeded the 270 days likewise, exceeded the 365 days for logging in as a LIVE account , and exceeded the 90 additional days required for login thereafter too.  Emails sent to it, get returned as undeliverable and signed as mailer-daemon. 

No matter who I call, no one can fix this so I can recover the third account which has not been used for 528 days.

XSS

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Last updated October 10, 2023 Views 2,659 Applies to: