It's incredibly common to have Outlook crash because of a corrupted PST file. There is nothing worse than when you are working on something important, you go to send off an email, and Outlook freezes or you see that dreaded "not responding" message. If your Outlook profile is listed under the Privacy tab, Spotlight will not index it. There are different steps to take if you are on Windows (you'll need to locate the Search Index) or Mac (use Spotlight). First, let's read about how to check if Outlook is indexing on Windows. The indexing feature is essentially a catalogue that is built from all of the information you receive in your email.
To get support in Outlook.com, click here or select Help on the menu bar and enter your query. If the self-help doesn't solve your problem, scroll down to Still need help? Visit Firefox support to learn how to Disable or remove Add-ons. Some users may not be able to empty their Deleted Items folder.
Outlook.com (the web version of Outlook) and Outlook apps require a 1st party alias (Outlook/Hotmail/Live/MSN) to send and receive email, use calendar, etc. Occasionally, classic Outlook tries to run a process in the background. Auto-archive, sending and receiving a very large attachment, or running some of the other mailbox tools https://fixoutlookhelp.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/repair-outlook-ost-and-pst-files-2025-guide can all be done in the background. Check the status bar at the bottom of the screen to see if another process is running. If so, wait a short time (usually two or three minutes) to see if Outlook starts working again.
If Outlook won't open, you can't check your incoming messages or send an outgoing one from your desktop. You cannot create a new email address with @live.com as the domain address. You cannot create a new email with https://fixoutlookhelp.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/repair-outlook-ost-and-pst-files-2025-guide @msn.com as the domain address. Existing Hotmail accounts have been permitted to keep their email addresses as well. If Microsoft Outlook is not working, we might be able to help you pinpoint why.
If creating a new profile solves your issue, you can return to the Show Profiles dialog and delete your old profile. If installing the latest updates didn't resolve your issue, move on to the next step. If your antivirus software isn't up-to-date, Outlook may not function correctly. Start the tool and proceed to the email repair section and add files. Start Registry Editor by Pressing the Windows Key+R to open a Run dialog box. Select such processes and hit the "End Task" button one at a time.
If the network is performing slowly, Outlook must wait for read and write operations to the AppData directory to finish. We recommend that you move several items in your larger folders to separate folders, or that you archive those items by using the AutoArchive feature. Make sure that the latest updates for Outlook are installed. For more information, see How https://fixoutlookhelp.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/repair-outlook-ost-and-pst-files-2025-guide to install the latest applicable updates for Microsoft Outlook (US English only). For more information, see Support for Office 2016 and 2019 clients connecting to Microsoft 365 services has ended. Running the /resetnavpane command removes all customizations to the navigation pane.
Make sure that the latest updates for Outlook are installed. For more information, see How to install the latest applicable updates for Microsoft Outlook (US English only). Many of these items can be automatically checked by the Classic Outlook Advanced Diagnostics troubleshooter.
We also released a new rule that corrected the wrong campaign verdict for all impacted customers during the incident. Customers with only a 3rd party email address set up as the username of their Microsoft Account will be asked to add a 1st party Microsoft alias to their account before accessing Outlook.com. You might need to set Windows Update to automatically download and install recommended updates. Installing any important, recommended, and optional updates can often correct problems by replacing out-of-date files and fixing vulnerabilities.
If you manually type in the secondary connected account email address in the "From" field, the email is sent as "On behalf of" your primary Outlook.com account. A software rollout over the weekend was deployed incompletely, causing one component to send a high volume of messages to another component that had been deleted, overwhelming the routing plane servers. Availability has recovered, and engineers are investigating the root cause and identifying https://fixoutlookhelp.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/repair-outlook-ost-and-pst-files-2025-guide problematic servers. The team is sweeping all remaining capacity to identify and address residual issues. Get Help has troubleshooters for classic Outlook for Windows you can run for many common scenarios, such as Outlook startup or profile setup problems. These often help resolve issues without the need to contact support.
Some customers may experience a delay when trying to create a new email address, or alias, for their Outlook.com account. Although it's not possible at the moment to turn the feature off entirely, you can choose to remove it from your favorites list by right clicking the folder and selecting Remove from Favorites. We have recently received some reports of users who are experiencing issues with subscribing to .ics/ical calendars. This Fix Outlook Stuck On Loading Profile (https://fixoutlookhelp.wordpress.com/2025/10/29/repair-outlook-ost-and-pst-files-2025-guide) will also lead to a reduction in the total number of contacts on your contact list. We will ensure that all information is retained and only contacts with matching information in all fields will be cleaned up.