Microsoft Outlook & 365 Business Email - how to start a new profile in Windows 10 or 11

If your Outlook data file is having problems or you just want to start Outlook setup from the beginning, the easiest way is to replace the profile with a new one. You can create a new profile as if you'd never used Outlook while keeping the old one to return to should you need to. Here's how…

Step 1

Click on the Start menu and type ‘control’. This should show you the ‘Control Panel’ app as the first option. Click open.

Step 2

In Control Panel, make sure that ‘Small Icons’ is selected at the top right. Then locate and double-click ‘Mail (Microsoft Outlook)’.

Step 3

In the Mail Setup dialog box, click ‘Show Profiles’.

Step 4

In the Mail dialog box, click the ‘Add’ button to add a new profile. You can call it anything you want but we've put ‘Outlook 2’. Click OK to confirm.

Step 5

Back on the Mail dialog, under ‘Aways use this profile’, select your new profile name. Click OK to confirm.

Step 6

You should now be prompted to set up a new email account. Enter your name, email address and password for your Microsoft 365 account. If you're not sure what these are just give us a call and we can confirm them.

Step 7

Next you will be prompted to login to the Microsoft system with another dialog box. Just enter your email address again, then password and click ‘Sign in’.

Step 8

This step may not appear for you but if it does, you need to select ‘Work or school account’.

Step 9

Again, this step may not appear but if it does, click ‘No, sign in to this app only’.

Step 10

You should now go back to the Add Account dialog, and it should confirm you have completed the steps with three green ticks. At this point you can click ‘Add another account’ if you need to (although you can do this later). Otherwise, just click ‘Finish’.

Step 11

Open Outlook again as usual. It will do a quick bit of setup and open your mailbox. Note that it may take a while for all your email to come back in but it will do it all in the background and you can get going right away. Give it at least 15 minutes for Outlook to do it's background work then its a good idea to close Outlook and re-open again just to finalise the settings.

Hopfully that's it. You can add another account here now if you wish. This can be done from the ‘File’ menu in Outlook then click ‘Account settings’ (twice), then ‘Add account’. You can then repeat the steps above to add the new account.

As always, we're here to help so if you are struggling, just let us know and we can help.