Hotmail.com was a web-based email service from Microsoft. Launched in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith, Hotmail became one of the first free web-based email services, allowing people to access online inboxes from any location. The name "www.Hotmail.com" was decided upon because it includes the letters “HTML,” a common programming markup language used when creating web pages. To showcase this, the name of the service was originally styled as “HoTMaiL.” In 1997, Hotmail was acquired by Microsoft and became part of the Microsoft Service Network portal as MSN Hotmail. In 2006 and 2007, after competitors like Gmail and Yahoo Mail entered the picture, Microsoft released a new and improved Hotmail as part of Windows Live. Windows Live Hotmail was continually upgraded until Microsoft released the final version in 2011. And in 2013 the service was replaced by Outlook.com, which currently offers email, contact, task, and calendar-managing services available in 106 languages.
Outlook.com officially launched Tuesday, marking the demise of its predecessor, Hotmail.
Nearly seven months after unveiling a preview of the email service last July, Microsoft announced the end of its beta run in a blog post.
Microsoft, which acquired Hotmail in 1997, said it will switch users to the new service "soon," but won't force them to change their emails to an "outlook.com" address. It added that all users should expect to see the change take place by this summer.
"Everything from their @hotmail.com email address, password, messages, folders, contacts, rules, vacation replies, etc. will stay the same, with no disruption in service."
The software giant also revealed that over 60 million people are actively using Outlook.com.
Outlook is migrating all hotmail.com accounts to Outlook.com. Therefore, Outlook.com is the official name of Microsoft's email service, which was formerly known as Hotmail and Windows Live Hotmail.
This means that your email address would now be @outlook.com instead of @hotmail.com. After your mailbox has been migrated, you’ll need to reconfigure your account in Outlook to reconnect and/or to take advantage of the new features.
The easiest way to migrate from Hotmail to Outlook.com is to sign-in to Outlook.com. Please check Upgrading to Outlook from Hotmail.
If it is not more than 5 days old, deleted emails may still be recover. Beyond that won't be possible. Outlook may recover messages and put them back in your Deleted folder. If you don't see the deleted messages that you are looking for, it means they are permanently lost.
There are also things that we need to know about deleted messages in Outlook.com. Kindly read the topic that deals with Important information about deleted items on this article, Restoring deleted email messages in Outlook.com. This article also includes steps on how to recover deleted items. Please read Recover email that’s been removed from your Deleted Items folder.
Outlook.com may also empty your Deleted Items folder every time you sign out. To change this, follow the steps under Stop Outlook.com from emptying your Deleted Items folder each time you sign out.
Feel free to post back should you have further concern.
