Multiple accounts

Question

As I inquire in PersonVue, agent says that I have multiple accounts. May I request to check and verify this as why I have multiple accounts?

Answer 1

PersonVue support cannot be accessed or checked here, but the behavior described matches a common Microsoft scenario where more than one Microsoft account exists for the same email address.

Why multiple accounts can exist

• A Work or school account is created by an organization’s IT department (for example, for Microsoft 365 at work or school).
• A Personal account is created directly by the user or automatically when using services like Xbox or Skype.
• If both use the same email address, Microsoft will treat them as two separate accounts, which can cause prompts like “Which account do you want to use?” when signing in.

How to reduce confusion between multiple accounts

1. Check if there is both a personal and a work/school account
   When signing in to Microsoft services, if a screen appears asking “Which account do you want to use?”, that indicates two accounts exist (Work or school and Personal) with the same email address.
2. Rename the personal Microsoft account (optional)
   To avoid the conflict, the personal Microsoft account can be renamed by changing its primary alias:
   • Go to the Manage how you sign in section of the Microsoft account.
   • Either add a new email address (alias) or choose an existing alias.
   • Select Make primary for the alias that should become the main sign-in.
   • After that, sign in to personal services with the new alias, and use the work/school account only for organizational services.
   Notes:
   • An alias is just another sign-in name for the same account (same inbox, contacts, and settings).
   • The primary alias is what appears on devices like Windows PCs or Xbox.
   • Renaming may not be desirable if Xbox Developer, Visual Studio, or MSDN subscriptions are tied to the current personal account identity.
3. If another organization created a work account with the same email
   In rare cases, another organization whose domain matches the personal email domain may have created a work or school account. In that case, that organization must remove the account from their directory. Contact that organization’s IT so they can remove the account and stop the conflict.
4. Using multiple accounts at the same time in a browser
   If multiple Microsoft 365 accounts are needed simultaneously (for example, work and school), use one of these approaches:
   • Sign in to one account in the normal browser window, and sign in to the other account in a private/InPrivate/Incognito window.
   • In Microsoft Edge, create separate profiles, one per account, and sign each profile into a different Microsoft 365 account.
5. Office apps and multiple accounts
   Office desktop apps do not support being signed in with multiple user accounts from the same Microsoft 365 organization at the same time. To switch between such accounts, sign out of one account in the Office app and then sign in with the other.

For any billing or subscription questions tied to a specific account (for example, which account holds a Microsoft 365 subscription), sign in to each account separately at the Microsoft 365 portal and check the subscription and billing pages for that account.

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References:

• Which account do you want to use?
• About accounts in Office
• Sign in to SharePoint