change address

Question

I need to change the email on my account so because I don't have the address currently on there anymore. The other day I set up an account with my primary email, but when I bought Office it got added to the old one, and now I can't switch to the right one because it says "account already exists"

Answer 1

Hello, thank you for reaching out to Microsoft Q&A.

Unfortunately, you cannot transfer Office licenses from one Microsoft account to another.

If you purchased Office under an old Microsoft account that you can no longer access and would like to cancel the purchase, you will need to contact Microsoft Accounts & Billing Support directly.

Here's how:

Go to this page: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/home/contact

Type Talk to an agent then click Get Help.

At the bottom of the page click Contact Support. Sign in to your Microsoft account if needed. If you face the same issue with the affected account use a different account to contact Microsoft Support.

Select Other Products then Billing and Account Profile questions then Confirm.

Click Chat with a support agent in your web browser.

Answer 2

To keep the Office purchase and fix the email problem, the Microsoft account that owns the subscription must stay the same; the email used to sign in can be changed by managing aliases on that account.

Follow these steps on the Microsoft account that currently has the Office subscription (the “old” email account):

1. Add the new email address to the existing Microsoft account
   1. Go to Manage how you sign in to your account: https://account.live.com/names/manage
   2. Sign in using the old email address (the one that currently owns Office).
   3. Select Add email.
   4. Either:
      • Enter the primary email address that is showing “account already exists”, or
      • If that address is already its own Microsoft account and cannot be added, add a different email address (for example, create a new Outlook.com address) that you want to use going forward.
   5. Complete the verification steps.
2. Make the new email the primary alias
   1. On the same Manage how you sign in page, under Account aliases, find the new email address.
   2. Select Make primary next to that address.
   3. After this, sign in to Office apps and services with the new primary alias; the Office subscription will still be attached to this Microsoft account.
3. (Optional) Remove the old email address
   1. Still on Manage how you sign in to your account, select Remove next to the old email address if it is no longer needed.
   2. Be aware: if the old address is from a Microsoft domain (like @hotmail.com, @live.com, @outlook.com, or @msn.com), removing it permanently deletes that alias and it cannot be used on any Microsoft account again.

Important limitations based on the error seen:

• If the “primary email” already has its own separate Microsoft account, it cannot be added as an alias to the account that owns Office. Microsoft does not support merging two Microsoft accounts or moving an existing Outlook.com address from one account to another. In that case, keep using the account that owns Office and add a different email alias to it as described above.

---

References:

• Change the email address or phone number for your Microsoft account
• How to add an email address or phone number to your Microsoft account
• Add or remove an email alias in Outlook.com
• Which account do you want to use?
• "Something went wrong" with error ADDriverStoreAccessNonLocalException