Outlook password

Question

My phone tells me I need to reenter my password for my outlook mail. So I enter in the one it’s been using for a very long time and it tells me it’s wrong so I hit reset and it tells me to use the Microsoft Authenticator I don’t even really know what the hell that is but look for it in apps. Open it and there’s nothing. Near as I can tell in order to use it I would need to have that account set up within the app and let’s just take a guess at what it requires to do that - your password for that account. LOL. We geez if I knew that why would I need this Authenticator. What a joke

Answer 1

First off "you guys" is not us forums users. I do not work for microsoft. I provide my time here freely to try and answer other user's questions like yours.

Microsoft has been setting MFA (multi-factor authentication) requirement as a security default. If you didn't want this then sign in here. (with your 365 account)

https://portal.azure.com/#home

then navigate to Microsoft Entra ID\Properties\Manage security defaults then choose Disabled

--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 2

Sounds like you'll need an account admins to reset the account so a new QR code can be generated with which you can relink the authentication device to your account.

If you are the admin (and blocked) then you can reach out to 365 global customer service here.
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/topic/global-customer-service-phone-numbers-c0389ade-5640-e588-8b0e-28de8afeb3f2

--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 3

Ok first of all I thought I was chatting with somebody that worked at Microsoft Authenticator. At least that was the link I selected to be on so not sure how I ended up on a forums page. So my my apologies.

Second I did manage to chat with somebody that actually works at Microsoft who after 20 min kept telling me in order to reset my password that I never changed to begin with that I needed to update this or change that. Well it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you can’t change or update a dang thing for an account you can’t log into to begin with so she was no help. Haha. This is truly getting frustrating I tell ya. Been at this for 4 days. Geez. And I think somebody gave me a link that had a phone number however it just takes me right back to the question that I have seen like a 100 times in the last 4 days “ what category do you need help with” which just simply states me over in this never ending marry go round.

Answer 4

Click the flyouts to find a phone number for your country / region.

--please don't forget to close up the thread here by marking answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 5

I do not know if this is even the correct place to be asking about this issue. It started because I keep being asked to use Authenticator when I didn’t even have the app.

What is happening is I never changed my password to begin with if it suddenly is wrong then it was changed for me. So when I try to reset it tells me to use Authenticator but you gotta have your password to set it up in Authenticator to begin with so then it tells me to use my phone number but I guess I never updated my phone number so then it tells me to use an alternative email but have tried that 12 times and I never get sent a code so my guess is that I don’t have the email as a back up.

Ok while I get that this is obviously my fault for not having updated backups but again I will mention that I am not the one that changed my password so it not working is Microsoft fault.

How do I move forward please. Kevin