Outlook.com ditches linked accounts in favour of aliases

Microsoft has announced that it will be halting support to linked accounts for Outlook.com, opting instead to providing aliases to users. Linked accounts will cease to exist on Outlook by late July.

Linked accounts constituted to multiple accounts being fused together, connected with a single Microsoft account. The system was introduced back in 2006 and is now about to be replaced since “a lot of things have changed since we introduced linked accounts back in 2006," says Microsoft.

“There are a number of people who have more than one email address and want to manage these multiple email addresses from Outlook.com,” Microsoft Group Program Manager, Microsoft account, Eric Doerr wrote in a blog post Monday. “Over the next couple months, we will stop supporting linked accounts and instead help people move to a more robust and secure way of managing multiple email addresses: aliases.”

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Create an alias, it’ll make life easier, says Microsoft

Linked accounts let you access multiple email accounts linked with one Microsoft account and therein lies a problem. While people took care to update passwords and security information on their primary accounts from time to time, their linked accounts were often neglected. This made the primary account vulnerable to compromise.

This system of linked accounts is being replaced by aliases. This will enable you to still have multiple email accounts, but you’ll be able to switch between two of your accounts through Outlook.com , without bothering with extra passwords.

Having a single Microsoft account is pretty essential these days as it helps you access a ton of services from Outlook.com to Xbox, Office365 and even Windows. This is even more reason for Microsoft to be extra careful about your security.

To help with a smoother transition to aliases, Microsoft is adding a couple of new features to the service. You will now be able to forward all emails from a secondary account to primary. It will also be possible to configure a secondary account as a “send only” address. When you combine this with email forwarding, you will be able to both receive and send email from that email address, all within your primary Microsoft account. Microsoft said that it is also working on letting users “move an alias”. This will essentially allow users to move email addresses and mails from one account to the other.

The company will be sending out emails about steps you can take to keep your linked accounts safe. Make sure the information on your linked accounts are up to date and that you know passwords to all of them. Microsoft has also urged users to set up email forwarding so they can read and write all their mails from one account. Users will still need to log in to their linked accounts once every 365 days to make sure it’s active or they can simply opt to have a new alias.