How to change alternative address for hotmail account?

Dave Rado

New Email
The alternative email address that I registered with hotmail many years ago no longer exists, but I can't see any way to change it in my outlook live settings All the hundreds of web articles that I've found on the subject are wrong - presumably they all are out of date. I have looked at everything under Options and under My Account, but although I can see how to change my name, my password, and almost anything else imaginable, I can't see any way to change the alternate email address that hotmail sends notifications to. Where is it?
 

EQ Admin

EQ Forum Admin
Staff member
Hi Dave,

I believe I found what you're looking for. Please let me know if these steps helped to fix the problem for you.

First, near the top right of outlook.com click the Gear and select Options:

Outlook Gear Options.jpg

Next, in the left side navigation bar, click Connected Accounts, and then click Manage or choose a primary alias:

Outlook Connected Accounts and Aliases.jpg

From there you can manage existing account aliases, and click "Add Email" to create additional email aliases for your account.
 

Dave Rado

New Email
No, the only account alias it lists there is my hotmail address - not the secondary email address that it uses if you have forgotten your password or if it needs to verify your identity for any other reason. How can I change the the secondary email address that it uses if you have forgotten your password? Ironically, in order to get to that screen, I had to be sent a verification code, and one of the options it gave was to email the verification code to my (now non-existent) secondary email address. (I chose the option for it to text me the code instead. But I still can't find any way to change that secondary email address. Why do they make it so ridiculously hard to find???
 

Dave Rado

New Email
I finally found out how to do it. The answer is here. You have to to the Security basics page and sign in with your Microsoft account, then select "Update Info"; then select "Remove" to remove your old alternate email address, and select "Add security info" to add your new one.

Goodness knows why Microsoft have made this so difficult to find out.
 
Top