Share via

How to fix the issue with MS Office asking you to log in every time you open an Office app

Katherine Bradford 15 Reputation points
2025-07-23T15:08:54.4+00:00

To resolve the issue with MS Office 365 asking you to login every time you open Word, Outlook, etc:

Close all Office apps

Navigate to C:\Users_User’sName\AppData\Local\Microsoft_

Remove the folders identitycache and oneauth

Curious as to type this has not been posted by MS.

Microsoft 365 and Office | Word | For business | Windows

Locked Question. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

Answer recommended by moderator
  1. Katherine Bradford 15 Reputation points
    2025-07-31T21:02:39.19+00:00

    Please note I was given the solution to the problem through MS Chat Support, so I no longer have the issue. I posted as a question to help others as the other Questions were not open. Thank you, Katherine

    2 people found this answer helpful.

2 additional answers

Sort by: Most helpful
Most helpful Newest Oldest
  1. Mike Russo 16 Reputation points
    2026-02-06T23:44:52.63+00:00

    Thank you this was very helpful!! Also helped me with the problem where user wasn't provided the option to sign in as another user when trying to add a shared mailbox as described in

    https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1663432/unable-to-add-shared-mailbox-account-as-an-exchang?page=1&orderby=Helpful&translated=false#answers

    0 comments
  2. Vy Nguyen 9,465 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-07-23T17:09:10.06+00:00

    Hi @Katherine Bradford, 

    Good day! Thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A forum and sharing the issue you're experiencing. 

    I understand you're experiencing repeated sign-in prompts when launching Office 365 applications such as Word, Outlook, or Excel. I know how inconvenient this can be, and I appreciate your patience while we work through a solution together. 

    To best assist you, could you let me know whether you're using Word and Outlook through the web browser or the desktop app? 

    This behavior is usually related to how your device and account are recognized by Office. Here are the most common reasons: 

    • Device not marked as trusted: MFA will be triggered every time. 
    • Office not activated properly: Apps won’t retain your credentials. 
    • Credential Manager issues: Cached credentials may be corrupted. 
    • Group Policy or Security Settings 
    • In enterprise environments, group policies or security configurations (such as disabling automatic sign-in or enforcing MFA) may override Office’s default behavior. 
    • These settings are typically managed by IT administrators and may require policy adjustments. 

    In the meantime, you can try to check it suit for your situation: 

    • Go to Settings on web browser 
    • Check the delete browsing data 
    • Sometimes, it will affect that you sign out of most sites 

    User's image

    Moreover, office apps use cached identity tokens to keep you signed in Work/School account. Sometimes these tokens become outdated or corrupted, especially after password changes, system updates, or tenant switches. Removing the IdentityCache and OneAuth folders forces Office to regenerate fresh tokens, which typically resolves the issue  

    Thank you again for your patience and for choosing Microsoft Q&A forum. Please let me know if there’s anything else I can assist you with. I’m here to support you every step of the way. 

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment”.   

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.