How to remove account that says it is providing its license for current email

Question

I am trying to remove an old work account that is no longer active on my Outlook but it says "This account is providing its license to (my current email). To remove this account, please remove that account first." I do not want to remove my current email. How can I unlink the old non active account while still keeping my current email?

Answer 1

Dear @Daniel Hernandez, 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.   

I understand how inconvenient it can be when Outlook prevents you from removing an old work account, especially when you want to make sure your current email remains unaffected. 

The message you are seeing: “This account is providing its license…” appears because your previous work account is still the one activating the Classic Outlook desktop app on your device.  

Outlook will not allow you to remove that account until a different account is used for activation. Before removing the old account, it is important to verify that your current account includes the correct Microsoft 365 license that supports the Classic Outlook app. If your current account only has a Business Basic license.  

For example: You would be limited to using Outlook on the web rather than the desktop version. 

Step 1: Review your current account’s Microsoft 365 subscription 

• To confirm your license, please sign in to office.com > Apps > All apps > Install apps > Microsoft 365 apps > Subscriptions.  

If you find that your current account does not include desktop app rights, your IT administrator can help upgrade it to a license such as Business Standard, Business Premium, or an Enterprise plan (E3/E5). 

Step 2: Remove the old account after confirming your new license supports Classic Outlook 

Once your current account has a suitable license, you can safely remove the old work account by following the steps below: 

1/ Sign out the old work account from all Office apps. 

Open any Office application, go to File > Account > Sign out. Close all Office apps completely. 

2/ Clear Classic Outlook’s authentication cache. 

Close Outlook. 
Press Windows + R > Enter: 

%localappdata%\Microsoft 

Open the OneAuth folder > accounts > Then follow the detail instructions in Microsoft’s guide on removing old organizational sign‑ins. 

3/ Disconnect the old work account from Windows settings. 

Go to Settings > Accounts > Access work or school > Select your old account > Disconnect. 

This only removes the device association with the old organization and does not affect your current email. 

4/ Remove stored Windows credentials. 
Open Control Panel > User Accounts > Credential Manager. 
Under both Windows Credentials and Generic Credentials, delete any entries belonging to your former organization. 
Restart your computer afterward. 

5/ Remove the old mailbox from Classic Outlook.
Open Classic Outlook > File > Account Settings > Account Settings. 
Select your old work account > Remove. 

Outlook may warn you about cached content, but only local data is removed. 

If Outlook does not allow removal because the account is considered “primary”, you can create a clean profile: 
Control Panel > Mail > Show Profiles > Add a new profile. 
Set up your current email only, then select “Always use this profile” and restart Outlook. 
Once the new profile loads correctly, the old profile can be removed. 

Notes: 

• If your device was previously managed by your old organization, Windows may block the disconnect. In that case, the former admin must release the device from management before you can continue. 
• If Office still displays the old license after completing all steps, reinstalling Microsoft 365 and signing in only with your current email will ensure activation is tied to the correct account. 

As community moderators, we kindly ask for your understanding that our access to internal development details is limited. Our primary role is to guide users toward the appropriate resources and support channels. While we may not have visibility into performing deeper backend analysis, we’ll continue doing our best to support you within the scope of our responsibilities.  

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any questions or need further support, please don’t hesitate to reach out at any time. 

Thank you for your patience and understanding. 

---

If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have any 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. 

Answer 2

In classic Outlook for Windows, the message about one account “providing its license” indicates that Outlook is tied to that account’s Microsoft 365 license. Outlook will not let that licensing account be removed while the profile is still using that license.

The available guidance in context only covers how to remove accounts from Outlook itself, not how to change which account provides the license. From the Outlook side, the only supported actions are:

1. Remove the email account from the Outlook profile (this does not deactivate or delete the mailbox itself):
   1. In classic Outlook for Windows, select File.
   2. Select Account Settings > Account Settings.
   3. Select the old work account and choose Remove.
   4. Confirm the warning that offline cached content will be deleted from the computer.
2. If Outlook warns that this is the last or only account in the profile, a new data file/location must be created before removal. See Create an Outlook Data File in the linked documentation for that prerequisite.

If Outlook still blocks removal specifically because of licensing, that licensing relationship must be changed by the Microsoft 365 tenant admin (for example, assigning a different license or using a different account to activate Office). That part cannot be done from within Outlook itself and is not covered in the provided documentation.

---

References:

• Add an email account to Outlook for Windows
• Remove or delete an email account from classic Outlook for Windows