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7 comments on “How Do I Reactivate an Old Email Account?”

  1. I believe my hotmail has been hacked. I am unable to change the password. Microsoft wants me to list 3 email addresses I have sent to from this account. Unfortunately, I have never actually sent anything from this account. I only use it to receive emails. As I can’t give them this info, they think this isn’t my acct. is there anyway I can bypass this or contact Microsoft? I was able to give them some previous passwords, but that wasn’t enough info.

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  2. This article, although being about Hotmail, also makes some general statements about all email service providers. Please note Gmail is different. Google doesn’t have a timeline for closing unused accounts, but if an account is actually closed for any reason, that email address will NEVER become available for use again.

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  3. ” I’m still able to use the address as a website login” if you have an email address as a login for a website like Facebook etc, and no longer have access to that email address, your account is in serious danger. You have no way to recover that account if you can’t get into that email account. It’s important to have several recovery emails and a phone number so you can get back into the account if your main email account is no longer accessible. And make sure you don’t lose asscss to those recovery accounts.

    Websites that use an email address and password to log in see your email address as simply a username and don’t do anything to check whether that email address is still valid. The only time they verify your email address after setting up the account is if you ask to recover the account.

    There are a few websites that occasionally show you your recovery information upon logging in for you to look at and see if you still have access to those.

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  4. I cannot access the email below at all. It became a talk talk email address but I always kept my old email address. It stopped working on 16/8 for no reason. any idea how it could be retrieved?

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