I’m switching to Gmail. How do I close down my Outlook account?

How-to
By
published

Microsoft has made it relatively easy to deactivate Outlook.com accounts. Find out how with our easy guide.

If you click on the downward arrow in the top left hand corner of the Outlook.com home screen, a menu with four tabs should drop down.

Click on the one marked "People" and all of your old Hotmail contacts should be there. If that's not the case, it might be worth flagging this issue to Microsoft to see if they can shed any light on it.

The People tab also lets you populate your contacts list with details of your Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn connections, and message their social networking profiles without leaving Outlook.

Caroline Donnelly
Caroline Donnelly is the news and analysis editor of IT Pro and its sister site Cloud Pro, and covers general news, as well as the storage, security, public sector, cloud and Microsoft beats. Caroline has been a member of the IT Pro/Cloud Pro team since March 2012, and has previously worked as a reporter at several B2B publications, including UK channel magazine CRN, and as features writer for local weekly newspaper, The Slough and Windsor Observer. She studied Medical Biochemistry at the University of Leicester and completed a Postgraduate Diploma in Magazine Journalism at PMA Training in 2006.