How to delete a Microsoft account | Tips and Tricks

Microsoft is a major company on the web as well, so it’s common to have one or more accounts of its services, sometimes even without knowing it. It may happen that, even simply to put things in order, you choose to delete a Microsoft account that maybe you no longer use, or which you decide to do without.

In this article we will look in detail how to remove a Microsoft account and all the precautions to be taken before permanently deleting the account.

Attention, from the 2021 version of Microsoft Office it will no longer be possible to use the suite of office applications without a Microsoft account, if you want to do without the Microsoft account we recommend that you take a look at our article on the best alternatives to Office or use an older version of Microsoft Office.

What are Microsoft accounts?

A Microsoft account is an email address associated with various services, the most popular and used are undoubtedly: Office 365, Teams, Xbox Game Pass, One Drive, Skype, Outlook and Xbox Live.

When we talk about Microsoft accounts we often think they are only e-mail accounts registered with the “outlook.it” domain or with the “outlook.com” one.

Instead there are many other domains that can be used: for example “live.it”, “live.com”, “hotmail.it” “hotmail.com”.

These are only the most common ones for registrations in Italy, then it must be considered that for each country a different domain is often dedicated, so the “variants” that can be used for account names are very numerous!

Microsoft, in the various periods, he proposed indeed different domains for email and the accounts associated with its services, but they are all traceable to the same infrastructure and manageable in the same way.

In addition, there are also institutional or corporate Microsoft accounts that have a custom domain, these are also manageable in the same way as the others (unless limited by the administrator).

What to check before deleting an account

There are some preliminary steps you need to do to make sure you don’t run into problems after deleting a Microsoft account. Here’s how to get around:

Retrieve the account password

Before proceeding to illustrate the ways to delete a Microsoft account, we remind you that it is not possible to delete an account without logging into the account itself, so if you do not remember your credentials (username and password) we invite you to consult our article on how to recover your account password.

Check for active services

If you have associated your account with Microsoft services, you should check that your Office 365, Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live subscriptions have expired, it would be a shame to give the company services for which you have already paid.

For this we advise you to check the page dedicated to services, after logging in you will see all active subscriptions, make sure there are no active services associated with the account.

Check files on One Drive

Also, you have to check that there are no important documents on the One Drive space associated with the account, because once the account will be deleted too the data on One Drive will be deleted forever.

Save contacts to Outlook

Finally, if you have used email it could be important export important contacts.

Per save your contacts it is necessary to export the email contacts, it is not too complex, just:

• connect to the Outlook page;
• click on the “Log in“;
• log in to the account to be deleted by entering your username and password;
• then press the menu button (characterized by 9 squares);
• click on the item “People“, Then in the bar at the top press on the menu”Manage“;
• finally click on the item “Export contacts“.

At this point, a file in CSV format will be prepared and downloaded which is compatible with email clients, Outlook and most other web-mails.

Delete a Microsoft account on desktop and mobile

On desktop you can access the full version of the Microsoft account management panel and this makes it very easy to delete it, just:

• go to the Microsoft account management page, log in using the account credentials;
• then click on the item “Your info“;
• scroll to the bottom of the page and press on “How to close your account“;
• then you will reach a warning page, after having consulted it you can choose through the appropriate drop-down menu for how long you want the account to be recoverable before definitive cancellation (you can choose between 30 and 60 days) then click on the button “Come on“;
• in the next screen you will be invited to put the ticks next to the notices for each individual service (it is a reminder to make sure that the user does not forget anything), once all of them have been placed, you can proceed by choosing the reason for the cancellation in the appropriate drop-down menu and finally pressing the blue button “Mark the account for closure“.

At this point the procedure will be completed, you will have 30 or 60 days (depending on your choice) before the definitive cancellation of the Microsoft account.

If you want recover a Microsoft account before final deletion, just carry out these steps before the end of the days indicated in the cancellation phase:

• connect to a any Microsoft service come Outlook;
• log in with your account credentials;
• then we will be informed that the account is deactivated and we will be asked if we want to reactivate it;
• by clicking on the “Reopen your account“Will start the procedure that provides for the verification of your identity by entering a security code that you can receive via SMS or email. Once the code has been entered and confirmed, the procedure will be completed and the account will resume functioning as usual.

Instead, after 30 or 60 days (depending on the interval chosen) the deleted Microsoft account will no longer be recoverable.

The procedure is also the same for deleting a Microsoft account from mobile (therefore from an Android or Apple device), since the site is responsive (so the website interface adapts to the device screen).

Remove a Microsoft account from Windows

On the Windows operating system, having an associated Microsoft account is now practically mandatory.

Once you proceed to delete a Microsoft account you have to also delete it from the Windows operating system of the device you are using, fortunately this is simple, just:

• write “Account”(Without quotes) in the search bar next to the Start key and press Enter;
• then the section “Account“Of the system settings, here, in the bar on the left, press on”Email and accounts“;
• then you need to press on the account to be deleted and on the “Manage“:
• in the dialog box first click on “Delete account from this device“:
• and finally, in the confirmation window that will open, just click on the button at the bottom “Remove“, At this point the Microsoft account will be deleted from your device.