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Restore an old btinternet.com email address

DavidBRose — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 07:47:29 GMT

I'm hoping to be able to assist a friend. His old e-mail account was deleted some years ago and he needs to recreate it, just so that he can receive an urgent email message.

Here is the background. His laptop failed and he reinstalled Windows. Now he needs to login to his Microsoft account, but he doesn't know the password. The e-mail address on his Microsoft account is his old btinternet.com e-mail address. They can send a 6 digit code so he will be able to login and change his password, but as that account was deleted it isn't possible.

As that account was deleted I assumed he would be able to recreate it, but there was a message saying that account already exists, so it seems there is still some reference to that account somewhere in the system.

Any advice that could be offered on this will be appreciated.

Kind regards

David

Re: Restore an old btinternet.com email address

gg30340 — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 08:36:58 GMT

It will be showing as in use because BT do not re use email addresses except as per the information in this link.

https://www.bt.com/help/email/why-has-my-bt-email-address-been-suspended-or-deleted-#:~:text=This%20happens%20when%3A,Premium%20email%2C%20and%20missed%20payments.

He may be able to re use the email address but if it not showing in his MyBT it will not be possible to reuse it.

If he is no longer a BT Broadband customer he will not be able to re use the old email address.

He should contact Microsoft or just set up Windows without a Microsoft account. There is an option in Windows to do that. If you do an Internet search for the version of Windows it will give you the relevant information.

Re: Restore an old btinternet.com email address

DavidBRose — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 08:51:08 GMT

Thanks for your reply. Actually he left BT and went to another provider, but now he has an EE account and I was hoping he could recreate the old email address, but although the system says the address already exists, he can't use it.

The Microsoft account needs to be resolved because he has active subscriptions for his 365 software...

Re: Restore an old btinternet.com email address

licquorice — Mon, 18 Aug 2025 09:10:10 GMT

Talk to Microsoft, I'm sure you won't be the first to have the problem.