I've had a similar experience. From 2003-2008 I used a free hotmail account. Then I got on the gmail train and had all mail forwarded from hotmail to gmail. L

I've had a similar experience. From 2003-2008 I used a free hotmail account. Then I got on the gmail train and had all mail forwarded from hotmail to gmail. Last year I went to check my hotmail account and couldn't find any emails older than 1 year. After some research [1] it seems that if the hotmail account wasn't accessed within the last year, they purge your inbox :( Moral: Always keep back-ups, don't rely on web-services, especially free ones [1] https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/oemail-orestoremail/all-my-old-hotmail-emails-have-been-deleted-how-do/fbb99c4f-80c3-4f2c-9d75-c2c3bd8bd107?auth=1 https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/outlook_com/forum/oemail...