Conflict between Microsoft personal and work account (same email address)

Question

Hi,

I'm having issues with my Microsoft personal and Microsoft work account.

Both are using the same email address, but with different passwords to sign in. I am also a Microsoft Office 365 admin for my company's Microsoft work account, under the same email address.

I need help closing down my personal account (or changing the email address on the personal account) so that it is just the one email address for the Microsoft work/admin account, without disrupting my work/admin account.

I have tried to change the personal account email sign-in preferences but no options are available to change the email address there.

Please assist.

Answer 1

I hate to say it but this is just how stupid Microsoft is. I have the same problem and have been trying for years to delete the personal account. The problem is that I no longer know the password for the personal account and when I try and reset it what gets reset is the password for the work account.

   Microsoft is so incompetent it is scary and Robert you link doesn't help a bit. You can't close your account unless you can get logged in to it and the password reset invariable resets the password on the Work account. Another Steller job by M$. I would feel terrible working for a company that was that incompetent.....

Answer 2

Hi everyone

I too have this issue. For many years I've had a paid-for 365 personal account with all my content in (mail, OneDrive for files, etc). But my issue started coincidentally after I activated the 'sandbox' feature within some Azure online courses within Microsoft Learn. To interact with a sandbox Azure environment, I think it took my personal account details which I'm using for Microsoft Learn and registered me in Azure AD as a work account.

Now, I can no longer sign in to an Outlook.com account on Apple devices [Settings > Accounts] - in order to use native iOS apps with my Microsoft account - like Contacts (meaning that the Contacts in my Microsoft account cannot be seen by the Phone app on my iPhone). With Contacts, E-Mail, and Calendar now all inaccessible through native iOS apps, it's left me with the tough choice of switching eco-systems fully - either switching all content from Microsoft into Apple or other way round.

I'm not sure which vendor has the limitation - whether iOS apps need to cater for prompting multiple accounts associated with one Microsoft address, like in @DavidCuttler screenshot above.

But what would be a massive improvement that is within Microsoft's control is to provide more information as to the source of the "Work or school account". Simply saying "Created by your IT department" is not helpful - particularly for those that are unaware of who created a Microsoft business service using the personal address; or where it could have been multiple sources (e.g. work; as well as a 'night-school'; as well as something else). Instead of saying "Created by your IT department", perhaps the message needs to provide an owner account name or e-mail address to identify with, such as "Created by *** Email address is removed for privacy ***" or similar. At least it would provide a point of contact to talk to, if having the two accounts associated with the one address really is causing difficulty, like what I describe.

Unfortunately in my scenario, I'm not 100% certain that the Microsoft Learn 'sandbox' feature has been the cause (without the improvement I describe), and I can't find any option to 'unregister' myself from the 'sandbox' feature; so I'm stuck with this annoying flaw.

Regards,

Answer 3

Hi,

I have nearly the same issue (2 accounts 1 email address) but .. I have live office subscriptions on one account and now the other one is set as the admin for our M365 account - How can I merge them so I don't lose data and the stuff that I've paid for?

Thanks

Mark

Answer 4

My name is Robert, an Independent Advisor and a Microsoft user like you.

To close down your personal email account, please visit this link:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/12412/....

I hope the above information helps. Please let me know if you have further questions.

Other than that, have a great time ahead!

Robert, I have a similar issue with one of my users.  When attempting to login via iPad the user gets the popup showing the email address for the Work/School account and Personal as the same.  The user has separate email accounts for each and doesn't know how she did this.  Problem is it will not allow her to click on either choice.

Answer 5

Hi

I have the same problem but I would like to delete my business 365 account and keep the personal one.

I'm using the same email for both which is causing a problem, as now I can't sign in to my business account to delete my subscription??

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks