I cannot change my primary email address on my Microsoft Account

Question

I cannot change my primary email address on my Microsoft Account

Anonymous

An error message appears when I try to change my email address for my Microsoft account. I have an outlook email address that I've been using for quite some time and now I wish to use it for my primary email on my Microsoft Account. However, the error message tells me the email is already in use. Well, yes it is, it is MY email. How can I add this email address in order to then make it my primary email?

Also, if I'm successful in changing my primary email address, with your help, would I be able to change my email that I used to setup OneDrive to this same email address?

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Answer accepted by question author

EmilyS726 275.5K Independent Advisor

You are welcome.

Here are your options

Go to https://account.live.com. Sign into the Microsoft account that has the OneDrive subscription.

Go to Your Info > Sign in preference, Add an alias.

You have two options here:

Create new: this will allow you to use the native domain outlook.com to create a new alias.

Add existing: this will allow you to add a 3rd party email address (cannot be outlook, hotmail, or live.com), such as yahoo, gmail, as long as they are not already associated with another Microsoft account.

Once added, make this new alias your primary alias.

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5 additional answers

Answer 1

I'm pretty sure I have two Microsoft accounts that I use personally. One is my Microsoft 365 subscription, one is an outlook.com subscription. If they both have OneDrive subscriptions (they might) you don't say which one to sign in to. And as shown in the screen shot with the question, and mine, the Microsoft 365 subscription "Your info" doesn't permit adding the other email as an alias because it is already taken. So it seems like you have not answered the question asked, you've answered some other question.

Answer 2

Anonymous

Broken

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Answer 3

Hello,

It is not possible to add an "existing" outlook.com address as the alias of another Microsoft account. Outlook.com is a native Microsoft account, when you created it, it is already its own Microsoft account. Since Microsoft doesn't support merging of two Microsoft accounts, you won't be able to add this to another account.

It is explained here:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/add-...

Answer 4

Thank you EmilyS726 for your prompt reply, I greatly appreciate your time and effort.

Yesterday I subscribed to OneDrive and used my current Microsoft Account primary email address. Is it possible to change that email address to either a new email (one that I will create) or an existing email address? Thanks in advance!