When you move from one Microsoft Exchange service to another, such as from an internal Exchange server to Office365, and want to retain the current profile, you cannot remove the original Exchange account from your profile.
The primary account cannot be removed unless it is the only account in the profile. You must remove all other Exchange accounts before removing the primary account account.
Logically, making the new email account and it's data file the default should work, but changing the defaults doesn't change the primary or principal account.
Primary Exchange Account
The primary Exchange account is the first account added to the profile. The primary account cannot be removed from a profile until all other Exchange accounts are removed from the profile (when the primary is removed, the next Exchange account added is considered the primary).
All other Exchange accounts added to a profile are considered secondary accounts.
The recommended method to change the primary account is to recreate the user’s profile and add the appropriate account first. However, there are two other options: edit the registry then remove the primary Exchange account from your profile or add a pst file to the profile, set it as default then remove the Exchange accounts.
Removing the Primary Account
You have three choices when you need to remove a primary account from your profile. You can make a new profile (recommended), remove all Exchange accounts from your profile then add the new account back, or remove a key from the registry so you can delete the primary account from the registry.
While making a new profile might be faster (and is the recommended method), there is a convoluted method you can use to change the primary account and keep the profile, retaining profile-specific settings.
Go to Control Panel, Mail and remove all of the Exchange accounts from the profile, removing the primary account last. You'll need to add a pst to the profile and set it as the default data file, then restart Outlook.
Close Outlook and return to the Control Panel, Mail applet and add the new account. (In my experience, the new account may not be listed in until you restart Outlook.)
Remember: the first account added to the profile is the primary account
Restart Outlook. Go to account settings and set the *.ost as default. You'll need to restart Outlook one more time to remove the *.pst from your profile.
I said it was convoluted, although it's not bad if you only have a couple of Exchange accounts... if you have a lot of Exchange accounts or the mailboxes you are keeping in the profile are huge, you can edit the registry to remove the 'primary' flag then delete the account. Editing the registry is generally the better option when the mailboxes will take a long time to re-sync (or you are on a metered connection) or if you have a lot of Exchange accounts in your profile.
Remove the primary account by editing the registry
You can edit the registry to remove the primary assignment, however it is not supported and not recommended by Microsoft. If you mess up, you will need to make a new profile, restore the profile key you exported, or use System Restore to go back to a previous restore point.
Close Outlook and open the registry editor.
Press Windows key + R to open the Run command then type regedit in the Run field and press Enter.
Tip: Export the profile key before editing, so you can recover your profile if you make a mistake.
In Outlook 2016, the profile key is at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Profiles\profile-name
In Outlook 2013, the profile key is at:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Outlook\Profiles\profile-name
To remove the Outlook 2010 primary account from the registry, go to the profile key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\Windows Messaging SubSystem\Profile\profile-name
Export the profile key then search for and remove one (or both) of the registry keys related to primary account.
I searched the profile for 001f662b (or 001f6641 in Outlook 2016) as this value is used by each account. You'll find two keys containing this value for each account and you need to delete the second key that belongs to the primary account (you can delete both keys). Once I did this, I could delete the primary account from the profile.
To verify it's the correct account, either look at the alias in 001e660b (the alias is at the end of the data: /o=ExchangeLabs/ou=Exchange Administrative Group (FYDIBOHF23SPDLT)/cn=Recipients/cn=74479d8714d3414c8502650cc962e1c6-maryc) or double click on other keys and look for the address. For example, in the screenshot below, the address is in 001f6641.
Note: you need to delete the entire key (on the left side), not just the registry value. The value helps you find the right key to delete.
In current versions of Outlook 2016/2019/Outlook 365 (subscription) you will not have the visual clues to identify the account. Search for 001f6641 and delete the first entry found, after verifying the key belongs to the primary account. Try removing the account from the profile (in Control Panel, Mail), if it fails, find the next key for the address and try again. (There are at least 3 keys for each Exchange account in the newer builds.)
How do I gotta remove It unknown email addresses from my mail account?
An early Outlook 2016 build was the last that I confirmed that it worked.
Oh... it worked this morning. I had to delete 3 keys that contained the primary account's address - including this one. (In a later test, deleting the first key containing the address worked. will need to update the article.)
Thanks for the great guidance. I set up a new profile then added the exchange accounts back in. Worked like a charm.
I'm having the same issue. I have 3 personal accts (2 gmail, 1 yahoo) that I've had for years. In May '17, I joined "Company A" that used Exchange. When I added that email to Outlook, by default it took over and became my primary email and the default for email, calendar, contacts, etc... (I didn't choose that, it just happened). Fast fwd to Nov '18, when I left "Company A" and joined "Company B" (also uses Exchange) with a 1 mo overlap. So, in Nov I added my "Company B" email to my Outlook 365 app. Then, about a mo later, I tried to remove "Company A" email and got the same message you posted about not being able to remove the "primary acct in Exchange". Outlook regularly prompts me to sign into the old non-existent acct for "Company A", it still tries to default to my old "Company A" address book, and that I get nervous that Outlook may eventually have undesirable consequences for leaving that old acct in Outlook. Bottom line, I want it gone, but I don't trust myself editing the registry - especially after reading so many comments from ppl that tried and had other… Read more »
Either method is basically the same - but with method 2, you don't lose settings specific to the profile.
Do you need copies of anything in the primary mailbox?
If you need anything in the primary mailbox (the one you are removing) export it to a pst.
Everything is stored on the server, so you wont lose anything.
Hi,
I got the same error message when trying to remove one email account. It says I cant remove the it since its a primary. I follow the registry fix however when I check the registry entry its using a different email account( the one that it set as primary on outlook)
any ideas why? i really need to delete the email account
Is the value only in the account? It should be in every account in the profile.
Hi Diane, hope you are well.
I'm trying to remove primary exchange account in Outlook (office pro plus 2013). the value 001f662b you mention is present in many more than 2 keys in the same account folder....any thoughts please?
You should only have that value in 2 keys - per account - and it should not be duplicated with a key.
Each mailbox has two registry keys and that key should be in both keys. You need to identify which accounts the keys belong to and delete the values in the primary account's keys.
But... you can just take your chances and - if you mess up you'll need a new profile, which is the recommend way to solve the problem anyway.
Never mind. Found 'Profile B'. Deleted it the registry stuff but it still won't let me delete the profile in Outlook...
I get the "primary account cannot be removed..." message when I try and delete 'Profile B'. I do the regedit and see 'Profile A' which I obviously don't want to delete as this is my current one.
It appears Profile A is my primary account, but it still won't let me delete 'Profile B'.
Any idea what's going on here? How do I remove this?
What is your version and build of outlook? The reg hack doesn't work in newer builds.
seriously, why is it this difficult to remove a primary account. I started my new job and the person who worked here before me isn't here anymore. So now my email/account can't be the primary account... unless I delete them both? Even tho my job already created me a new email... like they seriously couldn't make our life easy?? Billion dollar company and can't manage to let us switch primary accounts and delete old ones... I mean did they not think??
The primary designation here applies to internal settings- it will not prevent you from adding your account to a profile and setting your account as the default for mail and data file - if you need to keep the previous users mailbox in your profile.
If you don't need their account in your profile, you should make a new profile.
who says i should create a new profile before deleting the old one? Can this a***** be more arrogant?
Many people think you can only have one profile and delete it then discover the problem was not solved or they lost calendar and contacts. It's not hurting anything to keep it until after you make sure the new profile solved the problem and you have all of your data. The exceptions are people with small hard drives and large mailboxes or when the problem is corruption in the profile registry keys - then you have no choice but to delete the profile.
The main reasons I suggest keeping the old profile around a bit longer:
If the new profile (after adding just one or two accounts) doesn't fix it the problem, the problem isn't the profile, so a new one wont help. This can be helpful to people with a lot of accounts in the profile.
If you use IMAP and have 'this computer only' folders and forgot to export calendar and contacts, you have a chance to recover them.