I changed Hosting Provider and associated DNS. New Outlook keeps reconfiguring accounts with previous host's servers.

Question

I moved my domain to another provider, changed DNS migrated emails which all worked well.

I am able to add email accounts with Thunderbird email client, Gmail app on Android and Samsung mail app on Android tablet. All is working very well.

However, in "New Outlook" using Windows 11, I removed the old accounts with previous host's settings and added them back in from scratch.

The new settings were correctly identified and the account added successfully. When I checked the settings after creating both accounts, they had been changed back to the old servers. I have tried everything to make it recognize the new servers, but it just keeps changing them back to the old ones. I've even tried it on another PC with the same results.

Are the account details cached somewhere or stored in the Microsoft Cloud? Is there another explanation?

Any help will be gratefully received.

Thank you.

Answer 1

New Outlook for Windows - Force Advanced/Manual Setup

1 -- Delete the Account from New Outlook for Windows

• View -> View settings -> Accounts > Your accounts
• Pick an Account and [Manage]
• [Remove]
• (o) Remove from all devices {If you see this, select it}

2 -- Clear the local Cache

See the answer by "Hornblower409 Dec 11, 2025" in
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/5655980/outlook-starting-error-repair-reinstall-reset-does

3 -- Add the account using Advanced Setup

When Outlook starts and ask for an account, give it a bogus user/domain

Wait for it to give up trying to Autodiscover the account. And when ask for a provider [Cancel]

Now give it your real email and choose [Advanced Setup]. From here on, you're in control.

Answer 2

The behavior is consistent with Outlook using cached or automatically discovered settings from the previous host’s Autodiscover configuration rather than the new provider’s settings.

In similar cases, Outlook’s Autodiscover logic receives an unexpected or incorrect response from a web server and keeps reapplying the old server details. This can happen when the root domain or another endpoint still responds to Autodiscover requests with the old configuration. Other clients (Thunderbird, Gmail app, Samsung Mail) often use only the explicit IMAP/POP/SMTP settings entered, so they are not affected.

To resolve this, the authoritative fix is on the hosting/DNS side:

1. Contact the current web/hosting provider for the domain.
2. Ask them to ensure their web server is not responding to Autodiscover requests for the domain (for example, requests like https://<RootDomain>/AutoDiscover/AutoDiscover.xml).
3. Once the web server stops responding to those Autodiscover requests, Outlook will fall back to the correct Autodiscover endpoints and should stop reverting to the old server settings.

If the hosting provider cannot change this behavior, a documented workaround is to adjust Outlook’s Autodiscover behavior via registry so it ignores problematic Autodiscover responses (for example, excluding the HTTPS root domain and other paths). After applying those registry keys, a new Outlook profile is created and the account is added again so Outlook no longer pulls the old configuration.

Because registry edits are potentially risky (they affect how Outlook discovers accounts system-wide), they should be applied carefully and only as described in the documented workaround.

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References:

• Something went wrong and Outlook couldn't set up your account