[kgo]

I wouldn't trust any free service not to delete all my emails, either accidentally or intentionally. Hotmail supports IMAP and POP. So even if you normally use the web-interface, open up thunderbird every few months a month and sync up.

[cryptoz]

You are correct, except for "Hotmail supports IMAP and POP." No, Hotmail does not support IMAP. That was actually the source of a lot of Reddit's anger (MS devs didn't seem to understand that people want IMAP, so there won't be any support for it any time soon).

[kgo]

Wow. Yeah. Apologies. I did a quick google search and the first few pages were 'configuring IMAP on hotmail'... Checking again, the next few were "WHY THE HELL DOESN'T HOTMAIL HAVE IMAP?"

Anyway, hopefully they at least let you do pop without removing the message from your inbox.