Everyone wants a reliable email service that facilitates communication.
With several email service providers available, it becomes difficult to choose one. Hotmail, among the longest existing email services provides speedy communication. It is a popular online email service that is free.
So what’s the real story behind Hotmail?
The founders are Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith in the year 1996 in California.
That’s not all.
In the year 1997, Microsoft bought the company for a $400 million. After the purchase, Hotmail was rebranded to MSN Hotmail. Moreover, in the year 2012, it changed to outlook.com.
The best part?
The service provides a number of services such as Office online, Skype, Calendar and One drive. Get details on www.hotmail.com login, sign up | create account.
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www.Hotmail.com Sign up
Sign up at www.hotmail.com
So how can you actually use this? In order to enjoy the services, you need to create an account.
Creating a Hotmail account is straightforward. Let me take you through the procedure so that you are able to communicate with friends, family and colleagues. Firstly, open your browser and head over to www.hotmail.com.
Alternatively, search www.outlook.com. The links welcome you to the homepage where there are two options. Since we are creating an account, choose to create an account or sign up.
A form appears requiring you to fill your personal information. The information facilitates the opening of the account. You are free to fill only the required fields.
Ensure to remember the important details such as your email address, password and security question.
Why is this important?
It enables you to quickly access your account no matter where you are. Once you have completed filling the sections, enter the security characters and click create an account. The page directs you to a welcome message. Later proceed to choose your preferred language.
Finally, choose the theme of your email account and signature. The signature simply shows how the end area of the email will state. The section is important especially if the email account is for business purposes. There is an option to use the default signature.
Give the system a few seconds to set up your account and wallah, you are all done.
www.Hotmail.com/login Account use
Navigation www.hotmail.com/login
When you log in, the email account looks as shown below.
The user interface is clear to understand and navigate. You have the folder section which includes the inbox, junk mail, drafts, sent, delivered and archived items. Another important thing to note is the focused and other mail.
The focused mail refers to email from important contacts in other words known as primary. To ensure that your account is active, sign into the account often. If the account remains inactive for more than five years, it is deactivated.
The duration for login is different depending on the account usage. For one drive or Hotmail, login at least once in a year while for Xbox once in five years is sufficient. Also, note that any illegal or fraudulent activity automatically leads to the suspension of the email account.
Hotmail Accounts
During the registration process, your date of birth comes as a requirement. The particular information helps the email account identify the most appropriate content or features to send or allow you. As you know, the age brackets have varied preferences.
In addition, you can open a kids’ account for children. It is the legal guardian that creates and takes charge of the account on behalf of the minor. The liability in case of any issue is also handled by the legal guardian.
Features of the account
You can agree with me that having several features in one account is convenient. It helps save the time of moving from one provider to the next.
Hotmail provides this convenience since there are several features to choose from to carry out various activities.
Calendar
The calendar apart from knowing the date allows you to keep track of future activities and events. The calendar feature here allows you to control invitations, notifications and responses. You can also manage birthdays and reminders.
Moreover, there is an option to customize the look according to your preference.
People
Under this section, you have the freedom to connect to users in other social platforms. These platforms include Yahoo, PickIt, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Gmail. Also under people, you can import contacts.
Creating a new contact list is not an interesting task. Therefore, having the choice to import from other sites already established is a relief. The accounts where you can import contacts to Hotmail include Gmail, Yahoo, Windows live mail and previous versions of Outlook such as 2016, 2010 and 2013.
Active View
The active view allows the interaction of mails and recipients. Also, there is the chat where you can correspond with your contacts or the customer support.
Office online
Since the email account is a product of Microsoft, access to Office is simple. Viewing and editing documents received in your mail is made simpler. You have access to Microsoft Word, PowerPoint and excel.
The need to download the documents so as to edit is eliminated. The limit of document size is 25GB. You will agree that this space is adequate for correspondence. The storage is accessible using one drive.
How can you actually access these features?
There are two options.
One, navigate to the bottom right section of your account. There are 4 icons representing mail, calendar, people and tasks. Hover over the icons to identify the different features.
The other way is using the settings icon at the top left corner. Once you click on settings, a drop-down menu appears. Select options, which is the last choice in the list.
Another menu with the features will appear on the right side. Choose the feature you need to use.
Closing your account
We can agree that juggling through many email accounts can be tedious. There might, therefore, be the need to close your email account. Like opening the Hotmail account, closing it is also simple.
You do not need to provide a reason for account closure. For you to close your email account, you need to delete the Microsoft account. Head on to https://account.live.com/closeaccount.aspx.
A set of instructions are available to kick-start the process. Click next and check the boxes available while reading the information provided. Select a reason for account closure on the drop-down list available.
Finally, mark the account for closure.
After the process, your account will be suspended for about two months. When the two months elapse, in 60 days the account will get closed. However, if you feel the need to retrieve the account, log in before the two months elapse, it will be reactivated.
Make sure to back up all the information you need from the email account since it all gets deleted automatically. Retrieval of data after account closure is not possible.
Service notifications
Like most of the email service providers, notifications are available in case of an important update, message or new email. When you log into your account, there is a bell icon at the top left corner of the screen. This icon displays the number of notifications if any.
Furthermore, if you have provided a contact number, you will get an SMS.
Help and Customer support
We all get lost or mixed up on how to use some features of our email accounts. During such cases, there are two options to look for assistance when navigating Hotmail or Microsoft accounts. You have the option of using the help icon or contact support at support.outlook.com.
The help icon is available when logged into your account. It is a question mark icon at the top left of the email account interface.
When you click the question mark, a list appears. You can choose to type your query at the section written ‘tell me what you want to do’ or look through the list to find an answer.
The options in the list include a suggestion box where you are free to share ideas. The ideas help to make the company provide better services when they know what the users require.
Account upgrade
Users have an option to upgrade their accounts to get additional features. The two options of upgrading include premium outlook features with office 365 personal or home. The two have different charges and the additional features include;
Office 365 Home
The charges go for $99.99 per year or $9.99 per month.
- Ad-free inbox
- Advanced protection against phishing and malware
- Premium customer support
- A personalized email address that ends with Cliff@Bard-Crew.com*
- 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage for each user
- Outlook 2016 for your PC or Mac – includes offline email access
- The latest versions of Word, Outlook, Excel, and PowerPoint for the PC or Mac
- Give the benefits to up to 4 others for free
There’s more.
For the office 365 home with premium outlook features, you have an option to subscribe for a trial version. The period of the trail is 30 days before commencing with the payment.
The option provides a great opportunity to try out the features to know whether they suit your needs.
Office 365 personal
The charges for this package are at $69.99 per year or $6.99 per month
- Ad-free inbox
- Advanced protection against phishing and malware
- Premium customer support
- A personalized email address ending like Cliff@Bard-Crew.com*
- 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage
- Outlook 2016 for your PC or Mac – includes offline email access
- The latest Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for your PC or Mac
There are three main steps to upgrade your account.
- Choose the type of upgrade you want
- Select a method of payment. The payment options are through a credit or debit card, bank account or PayPal.
- Once through, provide the necessary details depending on the mode of payment. Upon completion, review the details to ensure they are correct. Finally, proceed by confirming.
- After the payment has gone through, you will get access.
What’s the best part?
As a user, you do not need to upgrade to any of the mentioned accounts. You can still use the free option and make the most out of the free features.
Payment conditions and terms
There are services within the free account that one may opt to use. A product such as Skype has some charges. In case of failure of payment, your account may be at risk of suspension.
Provide the billing details to ensure the payments go through. When you provide your payment details, you allow Hotmail to make all charges related to the service. Take note of whether it is a one-time charge or a recurring one.
Privacy
As a company, Hotmail values your privacy. Therefore any shared information is not disclosed with a third party. The information provided is only used to facilitate the provision of services and communication.
A contract is in place once you accept the terms and conditions stipulated during signing up. You as the user take the responsibility of sharing your information. Ensure to protect your details such as password and payment information to avoid any misuse.
Other codes of conduct expected of you include; not engaging in illegal activities, harassing or harming other users, sending spam, sharing inappropriate or false information and not violating the terms.
Updates of account
Like any other software, there are updates to the account that occur to improve the products and services. Hotmail may update the account automatically. You may get a notification in case any update needs your attention. However, many of the updates occur without notice.
The updates should not be a concern since they are meant to improve the user experience. However, some updates may affect the usage of your devices in case of software incompatibility. Note that the updates made do not guarantee the support of the current device version.
Change in terms of agreement
Like earlier stated, upon registration, you are required to accept the terms and conditions of Hotmail. The terms bind you and the company. The company reserves the right to change the terms anytime.
You will receive a notification or message in case of any change. If you feel uncomfortable with any new term, you have the freedom to close your account.
Conclusion
Hotmail as an email account service has a rich history. It has constantly evolved while changing ownership. The owners ensure it provides great service to its customers.
What’s more, the process to open and close the account is quick. Not to mention the great features that come with using the account.
Finally, the customer support is responsive and assistance in case of any issue is prompt. Try using the email account service today and experience convenience.
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