I created a new Outlook.com email address instead of renaming existing. How can I free up the new account?

Currently, Microsoft account does not support merging accounts.  For those who wish to merge original account with the new "@outlook.com" account, please wait for our updates. For the meantime you can go to this link:  Frequently Asked questions for Outlook.com for detailed information about the new outlook.com.

We suggest you to try doing the following workarounds:

• Autoforward all old account mail to new account. This way at least you will have all of their mail in one place, and can reply to it using their new address. To forward mail, log in to the account from which you want your mail forwarded, and click the gear menu at the upper right. Choose More mail settings from the dropdown, then Email forwarding from the Managing your account list.

or

• You can link your old account to your new account. Log in to one of your accounts, then click your user name in the upper right. Choose Account settings. On the left side of the screen, click Permissions, then click Manage linked accounts. In the new screen, choose Add linked accounts. To switch between two linked accounts, click the user tile at the upper-right of your Outlook window.

Thanks,

Jen

You, sir, get a billion internet points!

I just did this with my real accounts and all is well! I was able to rename my existing @live.com account into an existing @outlook.com account.

Furthermore, I was able to keep EVERYTHING. I kept my 25GB of free loyalty SkyDrive storage, emails, history, aliases that were already set up in the @live.com account, contacts, message history, Windows Phone app purchases, Xbox avatar and points, Bing rewards, etc.

You are a hero.

Microsoft, on the other hand, shame on you and your disgusting excuse for customer support. You have a hundred engineers over at Redmond and it took an ordinary user to rise up and fix your disaster. I was told over and over that there is no solution by SkyDrive staff, Hotmail/Outlook staff, and forum moderators. This kind of behavior makes me want to trade in my Windows Phone for an Android. You have treated your customers like ****, and we won't forget it.

This worked for me. Thank you for all your efforts!

I've found a solution. 

Please be sure to create testing account to verify below steps before applying to your real account.

Assumptions: you have both account@hotmail and account@outlook email accounts, and account@outlook was NOT previously made as alias and deleted

Description: to free the @outlook email account, you can rename ("Update email address") it to another email address (e.g. @gmail), and then close the updated email account. But it seems to be a bug in MS email service, not sure when it will be fixed.

Step 1. <gmail> apply for accountXXX@gmail in gmail (or other email supplier)

Step 2. <outlook> Login account@outlook, click "your name" at top-right of the browser, and choose "account settings", and then click "Update email address", and change your email account to accountXXX@gmail

Step 3. <gmail> in gmail, open the new verification email, click the url, and login your outlook using accountXXX@gmail account

Step 4. <outlook> It will prompt that you are ready to use your new account. DO NOT CLOSE THIS WINDOW, AND DO NOT LOGIN AGAIN. You will find your name at top-right of the browser, click your name and choose "Account settings", and "close account" immediately.

NOTE: if you login again after verifying accountXXX@gmail, the old account@outlook will be made as alias of  accountXXX@gmail, and previous work will be wasted.

Step 5. <outlook> login account@hotmail, click the gear icon and choose "more mail settings". And then, click "Create a outlook alias" (keep @hotmail as login account) or "Rename your email address" (use @outlook as login account afterwards, and @hotmail will be made alias), you will find that account@outlook can be used.

Step 6. <gmail> terminate accountXXX@gmail account in gmail, and do not waste google resources...

Please to noted, when I used testing accounts to verify previous steps, I failed in the following 2 cases

1. account@outlook was previously deleted as alias, due to previous solution to wait 30 days to free alias...
2. In Step 4, logged in again, and account@outlook was made as alias after login... I'm not sure if making the @outlook the login address and start all over again from step 1 would help or not. [NOTE: to change @outlook from alias to login address, it has to be deleted from the alias list, and "rename" accountXXX@gmail to the deleted @outlook name.]

What is the recommend workflow if ******@outlook.com also has aliases created?