How To Close And Delete Your Microsoft Account

A Microsoft account is necessary to use many of the Microsoft products and services. Services such as the Bing can be used without an account, but other services like Microsoft To-Do, OneDrive, and Office Online require a Microsoft account.

Many users who use other webmail services like Google’s Gmail create a Microsoft account just to use Microsoft services. Over time, when they stop using a Microsoft service or product, they want to close and delete the Microsoft account.

If you have also created a Microsoft account to use one of its services or products, and now want to close and delete your Microsoft account, this is the guide for you.

Before we tell you how to close and delete your Microsoft account, we recommend you keep the Microsoft account. Since a Microsoft account is free and comes with no strings attached, you can keep the account even if you are not using it. Because you can use your Microsoft account any time when you want, there is no point in closing your account unless you are creating or have created another Microsoft account.

When you delete a Microsoft account, it will delete all your emails, attachments, account balances and other data that you might have stored in your OneDrive account. In addition to that, you will also lose all your contacts.

So, be sure to backup all emails and files from OneDrive to your PC before closing your account.

Please note that when you close and delete your Microsoft account, Microsoft doesn’t delete it permanently. According to Microsoft, it waits for 60 days before permanently closing your account, just in case you change your mind. This means, within 60 days, you can reopen your closed Microsoft account by providing account security information.

Close and delete a Microsoft account

Complete the given below directions to close and delete your Microsoft account (Live, Hotmail, and Outlook.com).

Step 1: Visit this page of Microsoft and sign-in to your Microsoft account which you want to close and delete.

Step 2: Once you sign-in, you will see the following “Make sure example@outlook.com is ready to close” page. Click Next button to continue.

Step 3: Next, you will see “Mark example@outlook.com for closure” page. Here, select all check boxes one by one to acknowledge you have read each item. In fact, we recommend you read each item before selecting check boxes.

On the same page, choose a reason for the account closure and finally, click Mark account for closure button. That’s it!

You will see the following page with the date when your Microsoft account will be permanently closed.

Hope you find this guide helpful!