6 Simple Steps to Changing Your Primary Email for a Microsoft Account

A step-by-step guide showing you how to change your Microsoft account login email

Written by Darlene Antonelli, MA

Last Updated: May 5, 2023 Fact Checked

Does the email that your Microsoft account goes to no longer exist? You can change the primary email on your Microsoft account from the Profile page accessed from your web browser. Although you can add extra emails using Windows, you can only change which is the primary one on the account from the Microsoft Account page.^{[1]
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Research source}This wikiHow article shows you how to change your primary email for a Microsoft account.

Things You Should Know

To change your primary email address, navigate to the "Manage" page in your Microsoft account.
Click "Add Email" and "Add Alias" on the Manage page, then click "Make primary."
If the email you just entered isn't listed, you either attempted to add an email address already associated with another Microsoft account, or the email address is taken.

Steps

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Navigate to https://account.live.com/names/Manage. Enter your original email address to sign in and click Next. If you don't remember that email address, click Sign in with Windows Hello or a security key to sign in without that information.^{[2]
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- If you happen to remember the email address, you can enter it here. After clicking Next, you will be prompted to enter the code sent to that email. If you don't have access to that email anymore, like it no longer exists, click Other ways to sign in so you can log in without that information.
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Click Add Email. The button is located under the "Account" section.
- Microsoft refers to alternate emails or phone numbers as ‘aliases’. If you see that term, that is what it is referring to.
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If you want to make a new Outlook email address, click New and enter text that will be your new email address.
Creating a new email will prompt you to enter the email name and select an email service from a menu. Using an existing email will prompt you to enter the full address into a text field.
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Click Add Alias. You will be taken back to the profile page and the new alias will be listed among your other emails.
- If the email address that you just tried to use is not listed, you either are trying to add an email address that is associated with another Microsoft account or you attempted to create an email that already exists.
- You can find out if your other email is already associated with a Microsoft account by going to https://account.live.com/username/recover and entering that email address.
This will appear next to each alias listed on the account (except the current primary alias). The address you select will now be the one that appears in your avatar when you log into your account.^{[3]
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Tips

You can change your primary alias up to twice a week.^{[4]
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You can add up to 10 aliases per year.^{[5]
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If you created your Microsoft account before June 2014, the account expired and closed after 1 year of inactivity. If you created your account after June 2014, the account expired and closed 2 years of inactivity. You'll need to create a new Microsoft account.

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