Hotmail sign up: get a free outlook.com email address

Quick Steps to create a Hotmail account:

1. 1 Point your browser to www.outlook.com.
2. 2 If someone is signed in, click on the username and pick Sign out.
3. 3 Click on the Sign up now link.
4. 4 Type a username and choose a Hotmail.com / Outlook.com address.
5. 5 Enter your personal information.
6. 6 Click on the Create account button.

Create your Hotmail account

First, go to Outlook.com or Hotmail.com in your web browser: either address works.

Tip: if someone is already logged-in inside that web browser, you'll end up in that person's inbox. Click on their username (top right), choose "Sign out" from the dropdown, and start over!

Click on the "Don't have a Microsoft account? Sign up now" link below the blank sign-in form. This will open the new user form at signup.live.com, where you'll supply all the information needed.

Sign-up Tips

Enter your contact details in the form; here are a few important points: all fields are required, with the exception of account recovery information at the bottom of the form. It's better to supply both an alternate email address and a cell phone, but one of the two will be accepted.

• The first name and last name you supply will be used as the "From" display name when you send emails with your Hotmail account from a web browser - what your recipients will see:
• If the "username" you want isn't available for one domain, you can try the other: by default, you'll see "outlook.com" and "hotmail.com" in the dropdown. Depending on the country from which you sign up, localized version may be available, like hotmail.co.uk for the UK, hotmail.ca for Canada, etc. ("live.com" and "msn.com" are no longer offered.)
• Once you find a combination that still isn't taken, you'll get a green "is available" confirmation:
• Your password must be at least 8 characters long; you'll get the "Please choose a password with a mix of lower and upper case letters, numbers and symbols" error message if you don't include some variety to make it harder to guess. Capitalize at least one letter (not necessarily the first), and use a punctuation mark like "?" or "!" to make your password unique!
• Your country and zip / postal code are used to display local news and weather information, especially on Microsoft websites outside Hotmail / Outlook.com (like MSN).
• Ideally, enter an alternate email account (doesn't have to be a Hotmail / Outlook.com address), and your mobile phone number. This will be used to regain access to your account if it is hacked or if you forgot your password. The phone number is also used as security measure, to generate single-use sign-in codes as temporary password, for example.

Important - do supply an alternate email address and a cell phone number that accepts SMS text messages: these will be used to reset your Hotmail / Outlook.com password if you forget it!

Account successfully created!

When you are done, enter the captcha verification code and click on the "Create Account" button. Once all your inputs have been verified, you'll be redirected to your inbox! It is empty, with the exception of a welcome email from the Outlook.com team at Microsoft: Notice your username in the top right corner of the page: it indicates that you are currently logged in, and under what profile. The next tutorial shows you how to change your account picture.

 Side Info: your Hotmail account always allowed you to login to various Microsoft online services, but the company took it a step further with Windows 8, its latest operating system. To easily sync your data and preferences, you can now create a live account as Windows username. This is why you'll often see a Hotmail.com or Outlook.com profile referred-to as a "Microsoft Account".

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