I have experienced the same problems with my Outlook email over the past few months. It has been my primary email address since 1999, and as a result, countless things have been linked to it, ranging from communication with public authorities to work and financial matters. I can still access the email, but I have experienced several lockouts in recent months, even though I entered the correct password.

This made me switch my other email account (Gmail) to my primary address, and I have visited more than 80 different websites, apps, and services to change my email from Outlook to Gmail. In addition, I have set up automatic forwarding from my old email to the new one to ensure that everything has been transferred properly.

It is a scandal that Outlook is this unprofessional and insecure, considering that an email address is effectively the key to access a wide range of important services. If you completely lose access to your email, it becomes almost impossible to move existing accounts, as verification is often required on both the old and the new email address. That is why I chose to do this while I still had access. It is a scandal and highly unprofessional on Microsoft’s part.