Microsoft accounts now supports renaming a primary Outlook.com address to any alias you have created in the past or to a new one you’re creating today. This new change will make it easier for anyone to have an email address they want at any time without having to terminate or add another account to the equation.

Let me explain a little more. The company introduced aliases years ago and renaming a primary Outlook.com email address using a newly created alias has also been supported for a long time. This solution even became the replacement for linked accounts, which Microsoft retired back in June. The issue here was that previously aliases that you created were always excluded. There was a workaround that involved to remove the alias to rename your Microsoft account, but you were forbidden to re-use the alias for 30 days and this could cause you losing the name you wanted to use. The new update allows you to use any alias from the list as your primary email address for your Microsoft account.

The change is a welcome addition as there are many users who would really like to replace the email address that appears in Windows 8 and RT, SkyDrive, Xbox, Windows Phone, Office products and many other Microsoft services. Also remember that the company allows users to sign-in to an account using any alias.

Instructions

  1. Head over to your Outlook.com: Accounts settings page and sign-in, if necessary.

  2. From the left pane, click Account aliases. Now you’ll notice that you can easily rename your current email address with any alias you have. This will also allow you to change to any @Outlook.com address or you can even use the legacy names: @Hotmail.com or @Live.com, even @Gmail.com, if you brought that email address to your aliases list.

  3. Finally, click the Make primary with the new address you want.

Now there is another feature called “move an alias” that basically is the ability to move an email address and content from one account to another. Microsoft mentioned in the past such ability, but it seems that it will take a while before we hear about it.

Source Outlook