my hotmail email had turned into a Outlook email with a bunch of numbers in it

Question

my hotmail email had turned into a Outlook email with a bunch of numbers in it

Alexander Lee 0

I posted a question a few minutes ago but for some reason it was removed due to code of conduct even though all I did was show example pictures, maybe revealing my email seems to break the rules so I guess I won't show that this time. To explain my situation, it seems that my Hotmail email had turned into a an Outlook email that has a bunch of random numbers in it I don't know why this has happened, nor what's the solution to fixing this problem. I log in with my Hotmail email just as always do along with my password. my Hotmail email still shows up as my primary along with my cell phone number so I don't get why when I go to Outlook it shows my email not as my Hotmail address but as an Outlook address with like Bunches of numbers and some letters. I've tried multiple troubleshoot options such as deleting cache, then logging out and logging back in, adding a new email as a primary before switching back to my hotmail seeing if that will fix the problem. I keep hearing that this is a bug or some kind of glitch so how can I fix this. I've done every test that I can think of as well as looking up people who have similar problems to me and seeing if any experts methods will work but with no results. Anyone got any ideas on how and why this happening and what's to fix?

Erland Sommarskog 137.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-09-10T13:14:15.96+00:00

As you may have noticed, your second post was also deleted by spam filter on this site which sometimes is overly zealous. (But so ar the spammers.)

I have undeleted this post, rather than your original post. The reason for this is that your images seemed to include email addresses. This is PII (Personal Indentifable Information) which you should not share here. If you post an email address in text, it is normally masked, but that does not happen in images.

1 answer

Your answer

Erland Sommarskog 137.3K Reputation points MVP Volunteer Moderator

2026-09-10T13:14:15.96+00:00

As you may have noticed, your second post was also deleted by spam filter on this site which sometimes is overly zealous. (But so ar the spammers.)

I have undeleted this post, rather than your original post. The reason for this is that your images seemed to include email addresses. This is PII (Personal Indentifable Information) which you should not share here. If you post an email address in text, it is normally masked, but that does not happen in images.

Answer 1

This usually happens when a third-party email address such as a Hotmail or other non-Outlook alias setup is affected by the known Outlook.com alias issue, and Outlook shows an address in the format outlook_[long series of letters and numbers]@outlook.com instead of the expected address.

The supported fixes are:

Go to https://account.live.com/names/Manage and sign in.
Check the aliases on the account.
Set the Outlook.com or Hotmail.com address as the primary alias.
If there is no Outlook.com or Hotmail.com alias available, create one by choosing Add email and a new alias and then Create a new email address and add it as an alias.
After the primary alias is corrected, remove and re-add the account in Outlook for Windows if this issue is happening there.

If Outlook for Windows keeps showing the numbered Outlook address, Microsoft’s workaround is to set up the account manually as IMAP or POP instead of using the default setup:

Close Outlook.
Press Windows key + R, type outlook /profiles, then select OK.
In Choose Profile, select Options > New.
Enter a new profile name and select OK.
Select Advanced options > Let me set up my account manually.
Enter the password and select Connect.
If setup fails, select Change Account Settings and enter the mail server settings from the email provider or the POP/IMAP server reference.
In Choose Profile, select Set as default profile.

If the issue is on Outlook.com web and the alias list already shows the Hotmail address correctly as primary, the documented fix is still to make sure the correct Outlook.com/Hotmail alias is primary and then remove and re-add the account where applicable.