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Summary: Changing your Hotmail user name, not your email address, is easy. Here's how.
Can you please tell me how to change my Hotmail user name? Every time I email someone my full name and email address comes up and I don't want that to happen, I just want my email address to show on their email. How can i fix this?
Hotmail automatically fills in the "From:" address in the mail you send with your email address, and your name.
Changing your name is actually fairly simple, but getting exactly what you want? Not so much.
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To change your user name, sign in to Hotmail, and then click the Options link in the upper right:
Then click on Personal on the list that shows up on the far left, and then click on My Profile.
On the resulting page you'll find places to put your First name and Last name. Those are combined to become the name that is displayed with your email address on the "From:" line in your sent email.
So change those, click save, and you're done. Right?
Not quite. There are two potential issues.
First, you might need to sign out and sign back in again for the changes to "take". The change took immediately for me when I tried it out for this article, but I've also read of people experiencing delays.
Another problem I did experience is that I was unable to erase my name. The erase "took" - my name showed up as "Leo" with no last name, but the test emails I sent still said "Leo Notenboom".
My assumption, then, is that the first and last name cannot be blank - they need to be set to something. Setting the last name to a period, for example, worked. So if your email address is "example@hotmail.com" you might consider setting your "First name" to "example", and your last name to "@hotmail.com", which would simply duplicate the email address information your recipient already sees.
Related:
Ask Leo! - How do I change my MSN Hotmail password?
Ask Leo! - How do I delete my Hotmail account?
Ask Leo! - How do I change my email address?
Article C2500 - December 24, 2005
If you are using Windows Live Hotmail here's what to do:
Posted by: Mel at October 22, 2008 11:02 PM1. On the top right corner click 'Options"
2.Then click 'More options'
(you will be directed to another page)
3. Under 'Manage your account' click 'View and edit your personal information'
(you will then be directed to another page and might need to type in your password)
4.In your account summary page, under all your personal information, you'll see a link that says 'Registered information' - click on it
5. In the name and lastname fiels type in the name you wish to appear as a sender. *This cant be left blank.
6. click on 'Save' at the bottom of the page
7. click on 'sign out' at top of page
hi,
i just cant change my display name...when i log in to option and than to more option my account summary keeps on downloading and result in nothing
please tell me how to change my display name thanx
and regards
Posted by: mr bilal at November 3, 2008 5:46 AMbilal
hi,
i just cant change my display name...when i log in to option and than to more option my account summary keeps on downloading and result in nothing
please tell me how to change my display name thanx
Posted by: hamza at November 11, 2008 4:07 AMand regards
hamza
when i change my msn nickname it doesnt come up on my conversations in comes up the name used on windows live how do i change this?
Posted by: amanda at December 15, 2008 9:32 AMi cant seem to change my display name to cool writing cuz it won't let me copy &+ paste...i hav done it before but i have forgot wat to do...all i can remember was tht yu have to open up a convosation on msn and then type ''something'' nick but it wont work
Posted by: Lisa at December 27, 2008 1:16 AMit didnt even wrk
ll
Posted by: Katiuska Fernandez at January 19, 2009 5:49 PMI tried Mel's description and it led me to the correct place.
I changed my name years ago but it was only recently mentioned to me that it still shows an alias/different name than my actual name. When I look at the name, my name is my correct actual name. When I email myself it shows up as the correct name. I'm not sure why it still shows a name from years ago when others recieve my email.
Posted by: Jen at February 11, 2009 12:14 PMMel's direction for changing the user name worked perfectly. THANKS MEL!
Posted by: Sue at February 18, 2009 11:55 PMNow to change my address....
I keep recieving group emails from my work and i used to have my display name for emails as "King Cobra." Now I want it to say my name. It is a bit embarrasing seeing that my work contacts can see "King Cobra." I have looked all over msn and changed it. But it still comes up as my email name. How can I help this?
Posted by: Dom at March 14, 2009 10:10 AMthis is nuts, my sister has an hotmail account, in her personal info her name displays correctly, but when she sends an email, the name is someone elses...someone she commented to on facebook. How did the name swich? we have gone through everything in her hotmail and it is all correct. how can we get her name back?
Posted by: max at March 16, 2009 9:01 AM