I have been locked out of my two Hotmail accounts, completely without notice.  The issue seems to be that they want people to sign in with some other means than a password. (On each account, I have listed the other as my back-up/recovery account, so I am now stymied on both of them.)

Attempts to use their website to solve the problem have completely failed, Either I am going around in circles, or getting a "This answer is blocked" message.

Does anyone know some other way to contact Microsoft ?  E-mail address ?  Street address ? Telephone number ?

Plain English please.  I am not a computer geek.

Was locked out of hotmail a few years ago and contacted microsoft and they wanted me to use the troubleshooting tool and exhaust that avenue before going further which failed, then contacted them again and they wouldn’t budge. Got locked out of tv and lost a bunch of emails from my late wife. Wish you luck.

My accounts are now accessible again, though I now have no confidence that that will always be the case.

16 hours ago, allane said:

My accounts are now accessible again, though I now have no confidence that that will always be the case.

You could set up your 'recovery'account'  with another provider - open up a free proton mail, gmail or whatever and set a reminder to send test messages every 6 months or so if you don't use them normally.

That will give you a separate alternative to receive security mails outside Microsoft's eco system.

 

I have had instances recently where I could not get in with web access and usually caused by people trying to log in to my account from various different countries around the world in a short space of time. You can check this in the account settings.

 

Another option is to use something like Thunderbird where you can see all your email addresses and, if you want, keep a copy of all mails on your computer - as well as leaving them on the MSN server so you can still access using a browser.

@allane

 

I don't think that you are 'locked out', but simply have not noticed the option to use a password for signing in. Sometime the options are swapped, in so that you are asked to send a code to your recovery address. But it's just another option. Below it should be a link with the option to sign in with a password as normal. 

I guess you have already discovered that. So no need to worry if it happens again.

On 10/6/2025 at 8:58 AM, allane said:

I have been locked out of my two Hotmail accounts, completely without notice.  The issue seems to be that they want people to sign in with some other means than a password. (On each account, I have listed the other as my back-up/recovery account, so I am now stymied on both of them.)

Attempts to use their website to solve the problem have completely failed, Either I am going around in circles, or getting a "This answer is blocked" message.

Does anyone know some other way to contact Microsoft ?  E-mail address ?  Street address ? Telephone number ?

Plain English please.  I am not a computer geek.

No, you're screwed if using hotmail as your back up, as their SMS & OTP don't work at all.   Had same issue, as use a yahoo account as back up, but couldn't get into that either.  Luckily I did a screenshot of latest password change and had that, elsewhere in my photos and sent to FB msgr & Gdrive.