How to remove ads from your Outlook.com inbox

In a free Outlook.com account, some rows at the top of your inbox aren’t emails. They’re ads, styled to look like messages, and it’s easy to click one by mistake while you work through your mail.

Where the ads show up

• Inbox ad rows: sponsored entries mixed in with your messages, marked with a small “Ad” label.
• Upgrade prompts: “Go premium” and “Upgrade to Microsoft 365” buttons around the mailbox.

Can you turn them off in Outlook?

Not with a setting. Microsoft’s own answer is that Outlook.com is free and supported by ads, and that Microsoft 365 subscribers get an ad-free mailbox.

To go ad-free the built-in way:

1. Buy a Microsoft 365 consumer plan, such as Personal or Family.
2. Make sure the subscription is on the same account as your mailbox, and that the address ends in @outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com or @msn.com.
3. The ad-free benefit turns on automatically. On a Family plan it can be shared with up to five other people.

What this doesn’t fix

• Business plans such as Business Standard don’t include this benefit, because it’s for consumer subscriptions only.
• Addresses on other domains don’t qualify, even with a subscription.
• If the subscription ends, the ads come back.

Hide them for free

DeclutterMe removes the ad rows that look like emails in free Outlook accounts, and the “Go premium” and “Upgrade to Microsoft 365” prompts. Your real messages, folders and settings stay exactly as they are. It never hides security alerts, storage-full warnings or outage notices.