hotmail inbox

Alan Mcknight 0 Reputation points
2026-11-02T17:01:03.34+00:00

I cannot receive links or OTP to my hotmail account

Outlook | Web | Outlook.com | Email
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  1. Vikki-T 13,230 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-11-05T14:40:40.1766667+00:00

    Hi Alan Mcknight,

    To narrow this down, could you send a regular test email to the Hotmail address from another email account and confirm whether it arrives?

    If regular emails arrive but only links or OTP messages are missing, please let me know:

    • Which website or service is sending the OTP
    • Whether this happens with one sender or several senders
    • Whether the email is completely missing or arrives with the link disabled
    • Any error shown by the website after requesting the code

    Please do not post your full email address, OTP, or other account details here. If you have requested the code repeatedly, stop making new requests for a while, since repeated attempts may temporarily delay or block code delivery.

    These details will help determine whether the issue is with the Hotmail mailbox or the service sending the messages. Thank you so much for your understanding.     

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  2. AI answer

    2026-11-02T17:01:51.45+00:00

    Try these checks in Outlook.com:

    1. Check whether the mailbox is full. If Microsoft cloud storage is full, Outlook.com cannot send or receive email, and messages sent while storage was full are bounced back to the sender and are unrecoverable.
    2. Check Junk Email and the Other tab for missing messages.
    3. Check Filter > Sort > Date to make sure messages are not just appearing out of order.
    4. Check whether email forwarding is enabled.
    5. Check whether inbox rules are moving or hiding messages.
    6. Check Junk email settings and blocked senders.
    7. If OTP or verification codes are not arriving:
      • Check the correct mailbox. Verification codes sent by email only go to the primary alias or another email added as a verification method.
      • Check the Junk folder for messages from @accountprotection.microsoft.com and mark that sender as trusted.
      • Avoid requesting too many codes in a short time, because that can temporarily block code delivery.
      • If the account was flagged for unusual activity or temporarily blocked, codes may not arrive until that is resolved.
      • If an alternate verification email is another Microsoft account, use two privacy-mode browser windows so both accounts can stay signed in at the same time while retrieving the code.
    8. If the account password was changed recently, update it and check whether the account is temporarily blocked because of unusual sign-in activity.
    9. If email still does not arrive from a specific sender, ask that sender to review Outlook.com sender guidance.
    10. If no verification method works, select I don't have any of these during sign-in to replace security info, or use account recovery.

    If the issue is specifically that links inside Outlook for Windows messages are disabled, in new Outlook go to Settings > Mail > Junk email and make sure Block attachments, pictures, and links from anyone not in my Safe senders and domains list is unchecked.

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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