If you have a Hotmail or Outlook email address and you've suddenly found yourself locked out with a message saying you've made too many incorrect login attempts, even though your password is correct, you're not alone. This is a widespread bug affecting huge numbers of Microsoft email users that seems to have started around October/November 2025, and it's still ongoing as of April 2026. In fact it is happening to many more users as of March/April 2026.

What's happening?

You go to log into your Microsoft account or your email account with your Microsoft email and password, same as always. Instead of letting you in, Microsoft throws up an error saying you've tried too many times with the wrong password. Except you haven't. You've entered it correctly, and it might be your very first attempt of the day.

You won't be able to log in at all using the email address. It will not ask you to use authenticator either. It will just say there have been too many incorrect login attempts and that is that.

Here is how you know for certain it is a bug: if you sign in using a username, phone number or alternative email address associated with your account instead of your main Hotmail/Microsoft email address, the exact same password works without any issue. If you check the activity log on the security page, it shows zero failed login attempts. The password is right. The account is fine. Something on Microsoft's end is falsely triggering the lockout specifically against your main email address.

Signing in through the Outlook app or using a phone verification code instead of a password also tends to work as a bypass.

Who is affected?

Older Hotmail addresses (@hotmail.com, @hotmail.co.uk, etc.) appear to be the most commonly hit, and a lot of reports come from people who have had these accounts for 10, 15, even 20+ years. Whether it is exclusive to Hotmail or also affects newer @outlook.com addresses is not entirely clear, but Hotmail is where the bulk of complaints are coming from.

Why is it happening?

Microsoft hasn't officially explained it. The most likely cause is that external bots are flooding Hotmail accounts with failed login attempts, triggering the lockout system even though the account owner never did anything wrong. Because older Hotmail accounts have been around so long, they are common targets. The lockout system doesn't distinguish between your attempts and someone else's.

Microsoft has also been overhauling its login system and pushing users toward passwordless authentication, and these changes appear to have made things worse for a lot of people.

What makes it worse

The standard Microsoft support advice of waiting 24 to 48 hours, clearing your cache, and resetting your password largely doesn't fix it.

Many users report resetting their password successfully and then immediately hitting the exact same error the moment they try to log in with it. Some people have been stuck in this loop for weeks.

Waiting hours or even days before trying again, sometimes helps, but for most it doesn't. People can't wait weeks between logging into their emails either. This isn't a viable option, especially if you use Windows as this is your Microsoft account.

Microsoft's support is almost entirely automated now, making it very hard to reach an actual human.

Workarounds people have found

If you have a username or secondary email address set up on your account, try signing in with that using the same password. This is the clearest sign the bug is on Microsoft's end, as it works when your main Hotmail address does not. Using an SMS or email verification code as an alternative login method also bypasses the issue, as does the Outlook app in some cases. Some people have had luck switching from Wi-Fi to mobile data before attempting to log in.

None of these are a real fix though. They are just ways around a bug that Microsoft has not properly acknowledged or resolved.

What you can do to help

Best thing we can do, its tell Microsoft about it, via their contact page or social media. We need people to report it in order to get it fixed.

Posting about it online to raise awareness is very helpful too on sites such as Microsoft community, Reddit, and social media such as X/Twitter. This shows them that many people are affected. Also, upvote/write posts on feedback hub too. Such as this feedback hub post (link takes you to feedback hub on Windows).

If people don't contact Microsoft about it, it won't get fixed. They need to be able to do some troubleshooting to fix it, and that means they need us to contact them.

Contact Microsoft

You can contact Microsoft on their contact us page and on social media such as X/Twitter. The more people that do this, the better. They need to know this is widespread as well as do troubleshooting their end to find the problem. Be careful with social media accounts as there are many impersonators. Only use official sites such as @ microsofthelps on X.