Last Updated: 4th April 2021
For people who have several accounts or who little use emailing, it is easy to forget Hotmail account password. It is a helpless situation when you have some really urgent or important thing to see in email and you can't access your account only because you lost your password.
If you remember when you first created your Hotmail account, you were asked to give your phone number and an alternate email. This all was for this very day.
As long as you have access to your recovery phone number (phone number you submitted during sign up) or alternate email address, you can get hold of your account in under 5 minutes. That's right. Here is how.
However, don't worry if you haven't access to any of above. Although it won't be as quick and swift to recover password in that case but it is still possible. Watch below instructions to know more.
Since you know Hotmail is now Live so type: https://login.live.com. Below shown login screen will appear. Type you email ID and hit "Next".
Below displayed screen will appear asking for password. Now as you see there is a "Forgot My Password" link at bottom.
As you hit that link this screen will appear. Now our condition is first one. Select it and click "Next".
Now enter again the email ID of account whose password you want to recover into screen that appears as shown below. Fill the captcha code to ensure you are human.
Next a screen will appear having several options as shown below. Select the appropriate one.
As you select an option, for further verification you will asked for more info. For example, in case of recovery email you need to type the hidden part of recovery email ID. For text and call option, you need to provide last 4 digits of phone number as shown below.
Proceed through previous screen and within few minutes you will get a code. Provide the code in screen as shown below and hit "Next".
At that moment you will be allowed to reset your password. And this concludes the whole procedure for case when you have access to recovery phone or email.
Now as you don't have recovery option we will come back to recovery option screen as shown below.
Select "I don't have any of these" as displayed below and hit "Next".
A screen like below will appear asking for a contact email other than you are trying to recover. Provide it and hit next.
An email with a code will be sent to you as shown below.
You need to enter that code so that Hotmail staff can correspond with you personally. Input the code as below.
Now as a final step you will submit all details related to your account as shown.
As you proceed you will be asked to provide any past passwords you used for this account and some other details.
After collecting all possible info, their team will analyze the information to verify your identity. Don't worry if the provided information is not exactly correct since they only need to get a glimpse.
The team will take 24 hours before getting back to you as shown by the message below.
Although this route is not direct any takes lot of time and patience but it is due because of security constraints so be patient.