Hotmail website screenshot

Hotmail

Hotmail was one of the first free web-based email services, launched in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith and among the earliest venture-backed consumer web companies (funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Menlo Ventures). Microsoft acquired Hotmail in December 1997 and operated it as MSN Hotmail and later Windows Live Hotmail. In 2013 Microsoft folded Hotmail into Outlook.com; hotmail.com mailboxes remain fully active but are served by Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 infrastructure. Hotmail exists today only as a legacy consumer email brand and domain, with no standalone developer program. Programmatic access to hotmail.com mailboxes is provided through Microsoft Graph (Outlook Mail) and the standard IMAP, POP, and SMTP protocols, not a dedicated Hotmail API.

Hotmail is profiled on the APIs.io network. Tagged areas include Company, Email, Webmail, Consumer, and Communication.

🌐 Visit website 📡 Source on GitHub
6.8/100 minimal ▬ flat Agent 0/100 human only Full breakdown ↓
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
0 APIs
CompanyEmailWebmailConsumerCommunicationMicrosoftLegacyMessaging

Kin Score

Kin Score Kin Score How this is scored →
scored 2026-07-27 · rubric v0.5
Composite quality — 6.8/100 · minimal
Contract Quality 0.0 / 25
Developer Ergonomics 0.0 / 20
Commercial Clarity 0.0 / 20
Operational Transparency 0.0 / 13
Governance 0.0 / 12
Discoverability 6.8 / 10
Agent readiness — 0/100 · human only
Machine-Readable Contract 0 / 18
Agentic Access Contract 0 / 15
MCP Server 0 / 12
Machine-Readable Auth 0 / 10
Idempotency 0 / 9
Stable Error Semantics 0 / 8
Request/Response Examples 0 / 7
Rate-Limit Signaling 0 / 7
Typed Event Surface 0 / 6
Agent Skills 0 / 5
Well-Known Catalog 0 / 4
Consent & Bot Identity 0 / 3
Improve this rating by publishing the missing artifacts — every area above can be raised, and the full rubric is at apis.io/rating/. This rating is computed from github.com/api-evangelist/hotmail: open an issue to ask a question, or submit a pull request to add artifacts. Want it done for you? Prioritized profiling — $2,500 →

Security Posture 1

Authentication, domain security, vulnerability disclosure, and trust-center signals.

Hotmail Domain Security

TLSv1.3 · DMARC

SECURITY

Resources

Access & Security 1

Authentication, authorization, and security posture

DomainSecurity
DomainSecurity

Company 1

The organization behind the API

Website
Website

Other 1

Properties that don't map to a standard resource type

Successor
Successor

Source (apis.yml)

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: hotmail
name: Hotmail
description: Hotmail was one of the first free web-based email services, launched in 1996 by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith
  and among the earliest venture-backed consumer web companies (funded by Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Menlo Ventures). Microsoft
  acquired Hotmail in December 1997 and operated it as MSN Hotmail and later Windows Live Hotmail. In 2013 Microsoft folded
  Hotmail into Outlook.com; hotmail.com mailboxes remain fully active but are served by Outlook.com and Microsoft 365 infrastructure.
  Hotmail exists today only as a legacy consumer email brand and domain, with no standalone developer program. Programmatic
  access to hotmail.com mailboxes is provided through Microsoft Graph (Outlook Mail) and the standard IMAP, POP, and SMTP
  protocols, not a dedicated Hotmail API.
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hotmail/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
x-type: company
x-source: vc-portfolio
x-backed-by:
- menlo-ventures
x-tier: stub
x-tier-reason: portfolio-lead
x-status: acquired
x-acquired-by: microsoft
x-successor: outlook.com
accessModel:
  pricing: unknown
  onboarding: unknown
  trial: false
  try_now: false
  public: false
  label: Unknown
  confidence: low
  source: []
  generated: '2026-07-22'
  method: derived
specificationVersion: '0.20'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-19'
tags:
- Company
- Email
- Webmail
- Consumer
- Communication
- Microsoft
- Legacy
- Messaging
image: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/hotmail/refs/heads/main/hotmail.png
apis: []
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/hotmail-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://hotmail.com
- type: Successor
  name: Outlook.com
  url: https://outlook.com
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com
- FN: APIs.json
  email: info@apis.io
x-enrichment:
  date: '2026-07-19'
  status: backfilled
  pass: local-v1
  note: backfilled from .gitignore signal + verified work evidence