Add a Recovery Email to Microsoft Account

by Jeniffer Leio Excutive

Don’t want to lose access to your Outlook or Hotmail account? Add a recovery email to your Microsoft account. A recovery email helps in the password resetting process when you forget the password of an account. If recovery or secondary email is linked to the account, then a link or verification email that is required to change the password to reset password will be sent to it. A recovery email makes it easy to recover a locked account.

How to Add a Recovery Email to Microsoft Account

Here is how to add a recovery email to Microsoft account

Adding a recovery email address from Outlook.com

All Microsoft email services, including Outlook and Hotmail, are directly linked to Outlook.com. Therefore, you can add recovery email from Outlook.com as well. Here is how.

1. Launch your preferred web browser.

2. Type ‘Outlook.com’ in the address bar and hit ‘Enter.’ This will take you to Microsoft’s page.

3. Now, click on the ‘Sign in’ button. You will only see this if you haven’t logged in already.

4. Enter the credentials of your Microsoft account to login.

5. When your account opens, click on your avatar icon or an icon with your name’s initial at the upper right corner of the window. This will open the ‘My Account’ page on your screen.

6. Now, select ‘View account.’

7. Then, open the ‘Security’ tab from the top of the My Account page.

8. Go to the ‘Update your Security’ section and click on the ‘Update Info’ button.

9. Select ‘Add security info’ option. Before this, you may need to verify your identity by providing the verification code sent to the phone number linked to Microsoft account.

10. Now, select ‘An alternate email address’ from the options provided in the first dropdown.

11. Type the complete email address you want to use as the recovery email for your Microsoft account.

12. Click on ‘Next’ to proceed. Microsoft will now send an email with a verification code to the recovery email address.

13. Open and check the email for verification code.

14. Return to the Add security info window, and provide the verification code you’ve received.

15. Click on ‘Next’ to proceed and add a recovery email to your Microsoft account.

Go back to the My Account page and check ‘Update your security info’ section, if you want to verify that recovery email has been added or not. If you see your added email address next to Recovery email, this means now your account has a recovery email. You will also receive a security information update message on your Microsoft email account.

Microsoft has allowed you to add multiple recovery phone numbers and email addresses to your Microsoft account. The same procedure will apply to add further recovery phone numbers or email addresses. In case you forget your Microsoft password, then for resetting or changing password, you can choose which email or phone number you want to use for verification.

Margret is a technical writer and her background is in engineering. She has been covering IT-related subjects like AI, Operating Systems, Latest Trends, Software, Cybersecurity, and Printer Support for a long time. She writes blogs, guides, white papers, and essays on several platforms. Her appreciated work mainly comes on printer support, lexmark printer support etc.

Source: Microsoft Account