How to get Outlook associated with personal Office 365 acct to open in classic view without my former employer's acct

Question

How to get Outlook associated with personal Office 365 acct to open in classic view without my former employer's acct

London-4522 20

I want to use the classic version of Outlook that I used to have on a previous computer. It had its own Microsoft account linked to a personal Outlook email address. I recently linked that account to my main personal Microsoft account, which I recently upgraded to a personal Office 365 subscription. When I got the new Office 365, I tried to separately download the classic version of Outlook, which doesn't come with Office 365. It looks like I have both the classic app as well as the new version. However, the classic version is somehow still associated with my old work account, which was tied to an enterprise 365 edition that took over my computer when I used my PC remotely for work. Since I left that employer, I de-linked the work account and see only my personal account in my Windows settings and Outlook (new version). While I have scrubbed most traces of the enterprise account from my PC, some legacy policies from my employer's IT team, mostly defanged, cannot be removed (ghost in the machine). If I open the new Outlook app associated with my personal account and then try to switch it to classic view so that I can upload a .pst file, it also tries to force me to sign into my work account, and I get error messages if I try to add my personal account in the classic version. How do I get the classic version from trying to sign into the defunct work account?

Gabriel Giersdorf 0 Reputation points

2025-12-06T20:50:20+00:00

Outlook Classic for Office Professional 2021 will not open at all because it keeps attempting to have me log in to the old employer. The "new" Outlook allowed me to remove the work account but I need to open the Classic version to access the pst files.

How do I stop Outlook Classic from attempting to log into my employer's email account? Until I stop that, I cannot access any of the settings.

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Gabriel Giersdorf 0 Reputation points

2025-12-06T20:50:20+00:00

Outlook Classic for Office Professional 2021 will not open at all because it keeps attempting to have me log in to the old employer. The "new" Outlook allowed me to remove the work account but I need to open the Classic version to access the pst files.

How do I stop Outlook Classic from attempting to log into my employer's email account? Until I stop that, I cannot access any of the settings.

Answer 1

I get error messages if I try to add my personal account in the classic version.

What is the error message?

Did you remove the old work account from Outlook profile? In Outlook, go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. Select the account on the email tab and remove it. If it's data file is set as default and won't let you remove it, Set a different data file as default then restart Outlook.

Or, you can make a new profile. File > Account Settings > Change profile then restart outlook.. click Options then New and make a new profile. You can delete the old profile from File > Account Settings > Manage profiles after you start Outlook using the new profile.