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 Communications.
Create-or-Update Ergonomics could not be measured. We hold no machine-readable contract for
this provider to read, so there is nothing to measure a write surface against. Excluded rather than scored zero:
never-measured and measured-empty are different facts. Publishing an OpenAPI is what makes this facet — and
several others — scorable at all.
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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
deliveryModel:
model: unknown
open_source: false
commercial: false
callable_host: false
label: Delivery model not determined — needs a product licence on record
confidence: low
source:
- none
generated: '2026-08-28'
method: derived
accessModel:
pricing: unknown
onboarding: unknown
trial: false
try_now: false
public: false
label: Unknown
confidence: low
source:
- url: https://hotmail.com
status: 301
note: declared website redirects to https://outlook.live.com/mail/ — a different registrable domain (hotmail.com -> live.com),
possible rename or acquisition (probed 2026-09-03, roadmap#169)
generated: '2026-07-22'
method: derived
specificationVersion: '0.23'
created: '2026-07-17'
modified: '2026-07-19'
tags:
- Company
- Email
- Webmail
- Consumer
- Communications
- Microsoft
- Legacy
- Messaging
tags_raw:
- 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
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