Those who signed up for an account were also free to come up with their own prefix, or the string of text before the symbol. The name was originally stylized as HoTMaiL in honor of HTML, the markup language used to make web pages.Īs one of the first webmail providers, Hotmail allowed users to access their inbox from anywhere in the world as long as they had an Internet connection. To put that timeline into perspective, Hotmail landed just one day after the movie Independence Day hit theaters. Hotmail launched shortly after on July 4, 1996, to symbolize freedom from ISP-based services. They scraped together $4,000 to build a prototype in 1995, which led to a $300,000 investment from venture capitalist Draper Fisher. The free email service was created by Stanford classmates Jack Smith and Sabeer Bhatia. The true elite would even have a GeoCities website, but that's another story for another day. At the time, there was no provider hotter than the aptly-named Hotmail. Savvy Internet users that wanted to go the extra mile would forego the standard email address that was issued by your ISP in favor of a custom address from a third-party provider. All you really needed to impress the masses was a spiffy electronic mail address, or email addy for short.

Post questions, follow discussions and share your knowledge in the Community.It wasn't all that difficult to be perceived as a technology bigwig in the mid-90s. To get help and troubleshoot other Microsoft products and services, enter your problem here. If you can't sign in, click here.įor other help with your Microsoft account and subscriptions, visit Account & Billing Help. To contact us in, you'll need to sign in. If the self-help doesn't solve your problem, scroll down to Still need help? and select Yes. To get support in, click here or select on the menu bar and enter your query. Organize your inbox with Archive, Sweep and other tools in Still need help?

If these tips don't help, try our interactive troubleshooter below. Learn more.Ĭheck your Other tab and check there are no filters preventing you from seeing all your messages.Ĭheck your Junk Email settings and your Junk Email folder. If there are messages that shouldn't have been marked as junk, right-click each email and then choose Mark as not junk to move them back to your inbox. Check your Outbox or your mailbox storage to see what's taking up space. If either your mailbox or your OneDrive storage is full, you cannot send or receive email. If an email is too large, you cannot send emails. Your account might also be temporarily blocked because we noticed some unusual sign-in activity. If you can't send or receive email, check your account: update your password if it's been changed recently. If you're unable to send or receive email, or can't connect to, check these common causes:

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