I've forgotten the answer to my MSN Hotmail secret question, *and* my password, what do I do?

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Summary: MSN Hotmail actually has three ways to recover your password if you've lost it, but they all require that you have set them up before you run into trouble.

So far I've covered how to change your Hotmail password, and how to change your Hotmail password if you've forgotten it. The last one involves knowing the answer to a "secret question" that you set up when you created your Hotmail account.

But what if you forget that too?

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MSN Hotmail actually has three ways to recover your password if you've lost it, but they all require that you have set them up before you run into trouble. They are all simply techniques to assure that you are who you say you are, and not someone trying to hack your account. They are:

• A secret question to which only you would know the answer. Common questions are things like the city you were born in, your first job, or your mother's maiden name.
• An alternate email address. If you have another email account somewhere other than Hotmail, you can configure your Hotmail with the email address of another account. Hotmail can then send your password reset to that other account when you can retrieve it. Remember that you must configure this account before you run into trouble - if you can't sign in, you can't configure the alternate email address.
• Billing information from another MSN service. If you've paid for a premium service from MSN, such as perhaps the MSN Gaming Zone, one of the password recovery options is to provide your billing information again to confirm that you are indeed you.

So what happens if none of those work?

• You've never used a premium service, so there is no billing information to compare with.
• You never set up an alternate email address.
• You've forgotten the answer to your secret question.

In short: you are out of luck. Your password cannot be recovered, and you cannot access the contents of your Hotmail account.

And to be extra clear: I cannot recover your password for you.

My suggestion is simple: open up a new mail account, and learn a lesson from everything you've just lost. Configure an alternate email address, or make sure to choose a secret question whose answer you will remember.

Or move to a paid email service with real customer support.

A special note about third party so-called Hotmail password recovery services: most are scams. I've not seen a legitimate one yet and I would avoid them at all costs.

Related:

• How do I change my MSN Hotmail password? Change your MSN Hotmail password with step-by-step instructions. Changing your Hotmail password is easy, and you should do it regularly.

• How do I change my MSN Hotmail password if I forgot it? Need to change your Hotmail password, but you forgot it? There are a couple of ways to change your Hotmail password - if you set things up properly when you created the account.

• I've lost my Hotmail password, can you help get it back? If you have lost your Hotmail password, it's impossible for me to get it back for you. However, there are measures you can take to avoid this situation.

• Someone has stolen my email account. What can I do to get it back? The outlook is grim if your email account has been stolen, but there are a couple things that you can try to do to recover it.

• Are free email services worth it? Free email services and accounts are convenient and ubiquitous. But free email services aren't the right place to keep your important information.

Article C2358 - May 28, 2005