The following articles were included in our Exchange Messaging Outlook (EMO) newsletter published on April 9, 2026.
EMO is a weekly publication. To receive your own copy of EMO by email, subscribe here.
Support Exchange Messaging Outlook Sponsors
Increase Your Productivity!
ReliefJet Essentials for Outlook is a set of more than 160 tools for performing a wide range of tasks in Outlook: processing email messages, contacts, appointments, meetings, tasks and other Outlook items.
Today's Highlights »
- "Email Used with More Than One Account" Message
- Classic Outlook’s People Card is Simplifying
- Coming soon to Outlook on the web: the new People Hub
- Custom Views and Search Folders
"Email Used with More Than One Account" Message
In the past, it was common (and often encouraged) to create a Microsoft account with a work email address. This method worked well until the workplace transitioned to Microsoft 365. Once the account is moved to Microsoft 365 business, whenever you try to sign in, you're prompted to choose between logging into a Work or School account and your personal account, with this message “It looks like this email is used with more than one account from Microsoft. Which one do you want to use?”
This happens because both accounts exist on the Microsoft 365 servers.
If the message is bothersome, add an Outlook.com address to your consumer account and make it the primary. If it persists, remove your work account from the Microsoft account. For accounts with Hotmail, MSN, or Live addresses made secondary to a work address, revert to the original address as primary and remove the work address if needed.
When you make the change, the most you'll need to do is log into Windows using your new primary address. You’ll keep the same password unless you’ve changed it. For Microsoft forums or other services, you’ll simply sign in with your updated address. Your data will remain intact.
If you tried to make a Microsoft account with a Microsoft 365 business address and were prevented, that's because Microsoft blocks users from creating accounts with addresses already registered in Microsoft 365 business or school tenants.
Only users who created Microsoft accounts when their work address was hosted elsewhere will be affected when the work address moves to Microsoft 365.
Note: Microsoft is also asking users who do not have an outlook.com alias on a Microsoft account to add one. If you receive a request to add an outlook.com address to your account, I recommend doing it.
Classic Outlook’s People Card is Simplifying
In June 2026, the expanded people card is being retired and will be removed from classic Outlook. They are going to start removing it June 1 and should be finished removing it from all tenants by June 30. This is all automated and no action by the user or the admin is required.
Note: the standard contact card is not being removed, only the expanded view. Anyone who needs features in the expanded card will need to use Outlook on the web or new Outlook.
So what is the expanded people card? It’s the large square contact card that comes up when you double click on an address in classic Outlook. The small card that pops up when you hover over an address is not going away. If you need to see more details, you can open the classic Outlook contact from the people card. If fact, double clicking on an address after the feature is removed will open the Outlook contact, much like double clicking did about 15 years ago, back in the Outlook 2010/2013 time frame.
When the expanded people card is removed, users will lose the ability to see the local time and “Works with” in the organization chart, and the “Update your photo” link when you view your own expanded contact card.
Want to know what the standard contact card is? Hover over your name in the From field of a sent message and the small people card with just the phone, IM, mail icons will pop up then expand down with contact and organizational information. (Outlook.com accounts will only show contact information.)
You can check out the simplified people card in Word by adding a comment to a document stored in OneDrive. Right-click on text and select New comment. Click on your avatar or @mention another user then click on their name. Select Contact, Organization, or Membership to see the data available in the new people card.
Microsoft 365 admin can view the original announcement in the Message center in the Microsoft 365 admin center
Profile cards in Microsoft 365 - Microsoft Support
Coming soon to Outlook on the web: the new People Hub
According to Microsoft , the new People Hub in Outlook Web will have “a multi-column layout, faster search, automatic duplicate linking, and enriched contact details”. It will also have the New Contacts feature enabled and the toggle to switch off "New Contacts" will be removed.
The big difference (IMHO) between the old and new contacts? New Contacts uses categories instead of folders and even after all contacts are removed from a category, the category won’t always disappear. It’s not on the category list in email.
Merging / linking duplicate contacts will be a nice feature, as long as it does a better job at matching contacts than the previous contact linking attempt.
This will be rolling out to Microsoft 365 business users in late April to late May. No word on when outlook.com users will lose the option to use the old contacts, but they will be switched over too.
More details for Microsoft 365 admins is in the Message center in the Microsoft 365 admin center
Custom Views and Search Folders
After creating a bunch of search folders in classic Outlook, a user wanted to change each folder’s criteria to only show messages from the last year. They asked what their options were.
There are two options: edit each search folder to add a filter for the received date or create a custom view, add a filter for the received date, and apply it to the search folders. The steps for either method is identical, but using a view is “one and done” while each search folder would need to be updated individually.
Open View settings > Filter if you are using a view. Right click on the search folder and choose Customize This Search Folder > Criteria if you are editing a search folder.
1. Click on the Advanced tab in the filter dialog.
2. Click on Field to display the menu.
3. Date/Time Fields choose Received.
4. As the condition, select “on or after”,
5. As the value, type in “one year ago”. This will show only messages less than a year old and changes daily. You can use a specific date instead. Enter it as “1/1/2025”.
6. Click OK and close the dialogs.
If you are editing search folder criteria, move on to the next search folder.
If you are using a view, save the view with a new name and apply it to all search folders. In the Change view menu, choose Apply Current View to Other Mail Folders. If you only want to apply it to the search folders, uncheck your mailbox name at the top and add a check to Search folders at the bottom. Then check the box to Apply to subfolders and click OK.
Note: this only works in classic Outlook. New Outlook can't do fun stuff like this. :)
Tip: this filter would also work in Conditional formatting in a view.
New & Updated Outlook Support Articles
[FIXED] My Templates are missing from Outlook
Other Resources
High Volume Email reaches General Availability in Exchange Online | Microsoft Community Hub