I have just graduated from school (yay!). So I'm trying to remove my school account from Office because I also use Office for my personal Microsoft account and NEW school account (yay!). But I cannot get it to remove for the life of me. I don't even want to see it as an option. And furthermore, it often defaults as the primary login. Any ideas?
Some of the following may not be applicable, that's for you to decide.
On Windows 11, the old school account can remain in:
Office apps themselves
Windows “Access work or school”
Credential Manager
OneDrive
Outlook profiles
Microsoft Edge/Teams sign-ins
Cached Office licensing tokens
Try these steps in order. Usually one of the later steps is what finally removes it completely.
1. Remove the account from Windows
Open:
Settings ? Accounts ? Access work or school
If you see the old school account:
Click it
Select Disconnect
Restart the PC
(This is the most important step)
2. Remove it from Office apps
Open Word or Excel.
Go to:
File ? Account
Under:
“Connected Services”
“User Information”
or account listings
Sign out/remove the old school account.
Keep your personal Microsoft account and new school account.
3. Remove old credentials from Credential Manager
Windows often keeps hidden login tokens here.
Open:
Control Panel ? Credential Manager ? Windows Credentials
Remove entries related to:
MicrosoftOffice
ADAL
AzureAD
old school email
Office16
Teams
OneDrive
Be careful not to remove credentials you still use regularly unless you're okay signing back in later.
After removing them:
Restart Windows
4. Check OneDrive
If the old school OneDrive is still attached:
Right-click the OneDrive cloud icon
Settings
Account tab
Unlink the old school account
5. Remove the account from Outlook
If you ever used the school account in Outlook:
Open Outlook:
File
Account Settings
Manage Profiles / Email Accounts
Remove the old school mailbox/profile if it still exists.
6. Remove it from Microsoft Edge
Edge can silently re-add school accounts.
In Microsoft Edge:
Click your profile icon
Settings
Profiles
Remove the old school profile/account
Also check:
“Work profile”
“Profile preferences”
Wallet/profile sync accounts
7. Clear Office licensing cache (often fixes the “defaults as primary” issue)
Close all Office apps first.
Delete contents of:
C:\Users\YOURNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office\Licenses
Then restart Office and sign in only with:
your personal account
your new school account
Office will rebuild clean licensing tokens.
8. If it STILL appears: remove the Azure AD registration
Sometimes Windows keeps the PC partially registered to the old school tenant.
Open Command Prompt as Administrator and run:
dsregcmd /status
Look for:
AzureAdJoined
WorkplaceJoined
If the old school tenant still appears, disconnect it from:
Settings ? Accounts ? Access work or school
If that fails, you can sometimes fix it with:
dsregcmd /leave
Then restart and reconnect only the accounts you want.
9. Teams is frequently the culprit
Classic and new Microsoft Teams both aggressively cache old school accounts.
Sign out of Teams completely, then:
remove old accounts
clear Teams cache if necessary
Most common reason it keeps returning
Usually one of these is still signed in:
Edge browser profile
OneDrive
Teams
Windows “Access work or school”
Those silently re-register the old school identity.
Recommended order
Do these in this exact sequence:
Disconnect old account in Windows
Remove credentials in Credential Manager
Remove old Edge profile
Remove old Teams account
Restart
Sign back into Office only with desired accounts
That solves it for most people.
