Helping people with computers... one answer at a time.
Changing your Hotmail user name, not your email address, is easy. Here's how.
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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.
Article C2500 - December 24, 2005 « »
Leo A. Notenboom has been playing with computers since he
was required to take a programming class in 1976. An 18 year career as a programmer at Microsoft soon followed.
After "retiring" in 2001, Leo started Ask Leo! in 2003 as a place for answers
to common computer and technical questions. More about Leo.
October 7, 2009 6:31 PM
Hi Sir,
How can I set up my outgoing address in the option (not using outlook etc.) to make it like my business address e.g. Leog@mycompanyname.com
thanks
February 12, 2011 2:53 PM
I need to change my email address because Iam receiving up to or more than 100 junk emails per day.
13-Feb-2011
July 1, 2011 1:32 PM
***July 1st 2011 using Windows Live
1. Look at your top RIGHT corner. Your existing name should be there.
2. Click on it and select "options" in the drop down menu.
3. On the left hand side, there should be three options "general", "mail", and "privacy".......click on "mail".
4. Under the subheading "managing your account", click on "Account details (password, aliases, time zone)"
5. Now you'll have a page that shows all your information. To the LEFT of your existing name should be a "change" option. Click it.
6. Change your name/alias and then click "save".
7. You're Done! Email yourself to double check.
July 25, 2012 12:49 PM
I was going to send something to myself , my name is "Nestor Vanessa Jasmin Indeed" but i never put that there nor have i ever used "nestor" or "indeed" in my username for hotmail.. im confused as to how to change it and how it got there in the first place.. help.
September 12, 2012 9:52 PM
I recently changed my username for MSN but it keeps saying that my email does not exist and it something about like i have to wait 3 days but its been more then 3 days.