In August 2021, Microsoft warned that hackers were using fake "Hotmail backup TXT files" to trick users. Never download a file named hotmailcom_gmailcom_yahoocom.txt from unverified email attachments.
By 2021, Microsoft had fully deprecated the @hotmail.com domain for new signups, but existing @hotmail.com addresses continued working. In January 2022, Microsoft announced that all @hotmail.com accounts inactive for over 365 days would be deleted starting May 2022.
Plain text (.txt) files are the universal format for exporting email data without proprietary formatting. In 2021 and 2022, all three services allowed users to export: yahoocom gmailcom hotmailcom txt 2022 2021
However, none of these providers ever released a legitimate "master TXT file" containing actual email content in plain text for security reasons. If you downloaded a file named yahoomail_2022.txt from a third-party site, it is likely a scam or a collection of public email addresses harvested before 2021.
The file appears to be a plain text list of email addresses or domains from three major providers: In August 2021, Microsoft warned that hackers were
Dates suggest the data was collected or last updated in 2021–2022.
In February 2021, Yahoo Finance reported that Yahoo Mail still had over 220 million active users. However, Yahoo began aggressively deleting inactive accounts that had not been logged into since July 15, 2021. However, none of these providers ever released a
Microsoft no longer distributes single TXT recovery codes. Instead, they use the Authenticator app. However, if you have an old 2021 TXT file with a "Single-use code," it will work only if you haven't reset 2FA since.