"You've tried to sign in too many times with an incorrect email address or password"
If the Hotmail login process fails, you will receive an error message whose nature depends on a number of factors; the simplest, most common Windows Live Hotmail sign in failure comes from invalid credentials (wrong email address and/or mistyped password), the "The email address or password is incorrect. Please try again" error message discussed in the previous tutorial. In this tutorial, we'll talk about a different kind of message, the one you get when Hotmail suspects that someone unauthorized is trying to access an email account - but as you'll see, there are more than one reason for this error.
Tip: Microsoft now offers a bullet-proof way of logging into your account. You can download the Microsoft Authenticator app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Once you have configured it, it allows you to log in without password: just enter the code the app shows. Better yet, it prevents others from logging into your account, even if they somehow managed to get your account password!
Too many unsuccessful login attempts to your Hotmail account
For reference in the rest of this tutorial, here's a screenshot of this Hotmail sign in error message:
When the Hotmail login screen tells you that "you've tried to sign in too many times", it simply means that the particular email address you typed has been either hacked or unsuccessfully tried to get into for legitimate reasons, that it will not let you sign in unless you take additional steps - this is a security feature designed to keep hackers out. And if you have a popular email user name (like a simple first name before "@hotmail.com" or "@live.com"), you know all too well this problem!
- The first step to troubleshooting this error message is to confirm that the email address you typed is indeed yours: did you forget a number, a hyphen, an underscore? (Email addresses are not case-sensitive, so whether you typed in uppercase or lowercase does not matter.)
- If it is your email address, someone has voluntarily or accidentally tried to login to your email account - you may need to contact Hotmail customer service if this happens to often. If, as is most probably the case, it is just a question of mistyped email address, just click on the "Sign in using another Windows Live ID" link to enter the correct email address, and proceed with the regular Hotmail login process.
- If it was your actual email address, you can also click on the "Reset your password" link to go through the password recovery process in case you are just forgetting your password. If you are concerned about the security of your Hotmail account, know that you can always make Hotmail force you to regularly change password. Likewise, you can change your account password by clicking on "Forgot your password?"
- To proceed with the regular Hotmail sign in, you will need to fill in the "captcha" test that Windows Live provides below the login form to confirm that you are human, and not an automated software trying to hack into random Hotmail accounts.
2020 Update
To update this tutorial 9 years (!) after it was published, nothing has changed. However, if you (or someone else) tried too many times to login with the wrong password, you may get an actual "Sign-in blocked" error message.
If that's the case, stop trying to login: click on the "Reset your password" link on that screen to view the reset options you can use (what's available depends largely on the information you supplied when you signed up).
If all fails, try getting in touch with Microsoft. Depending on the other services you have with the company (like Office 365), you might be able to regain access to your emails if you can prove ownership of your account.
Conclusion
In the majority of cases (from our experience and others' we know of), the simple cause of this error message is that the email address typed was incomplete, and happened to correspond to a common email address that other users try to log into by mistake - typical example being the lucky few who got hold of a Hotmail address that consists of a simple first name - like john@hotmail.com, for example.
Tip: if you do not have a common Hotmail.com or Live.com email address as mentioned earlier, someone might actually try to be hacking into your account. A later tutorial will show you how to deal with login fraud and avoid the problems associated with having multiple users try to sign in to your own email account.
New Hotmail, MSN Hotmail, Windows Live Hotmail & Live email are all referring to the same free webmail service offered by Microsoft and Windows Live Team (works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Mac OS X). Microsoft Corporation, Apple, and other companies own the copyright or trademark to these and other terms mentioned.