The reset process for Microsoft 365 depends entirely on what kind of account you have — a personal Microsoft account, or a work or school account managed by an organization's IT department. Using the wrong process is the most common reason people get stuck, so the first step is figuring out which one applies to you.
Which kind of account do you have?
- If you sign in with a personal email (Outlook.com, Hotmail, or a personal Gmail/other email tied to a Microsoft account), you have a personal Microsoft account.
- If your email ends in your company or school's domain (like
you@yourcompany.com) and was set up by an IT department, you have a work or school account — also called an Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) account.
Resetting a personal Microsoft account password
- Go to the Microsoft account password reset page.
- Select "I forgot my password" and enter your email address.
- Microsoft will ask you to verify your identity, typically by sending a code to a recovery email or phone number you set up previously.
- Enter the code, then set a new password.
If you no longer have access to your recovery email or phone number, you'll need to fill out the Microsoft Account Recovery Form, which asks detailed questions to verify you're the actual account owner. This process can take several days, since it's designed to prevent someone else from impersonating you to take over the account.
Resetting a work or school account password
For work or school accounts, the process depends on whether your organization has enabled self-service password reset (SSPR).
- Go to the Microsoft work/school password reset page.
- Enter your work email and the characters shown in the verification image.
- If self-service reset is enabled for your organization, you'll be asked to verify your identity through a method your IT department configured — usually a code sent to a personal phone number or an authenticator app.
- If you see a message saying your organization hasn't enabled this, you'll need to contact your IT department directly to have your password reset manually.
Tip: if you're not sure whether your organization has self-service reset enabled, just try the link above — it'll tell you immediately rather than making you guess. There's no harm in checking.
If you're fully locked out and can't receive any verification codes
- Personal account: use the Account Recovery Form linked above. Be prepared to answer detailed questions about the account's history — when it was created, recent password changes, and any associated subscriptions, to help verify it's genuinely you.
- Work/school account: contact your organization's IT department directly. They can reset your password from the admin side regardless of whether you can complete the self-service verification.
After you've reset your password
A few things commonly break right after a password change, so don't be alarmed if any of these happen — they're expected and have straightforward fixes:
- OneDrive may stop syncing until you re-enter your new password in the desktop sync client, or unlink and relink your account if re-entering the password alone doesn't resolve it.
- Outlook on mobile devices may show a sign-in error until you remove and re-add the account with the new password.
- Any saved app passwords for older devices or apps that don't support modern sign-in may need to be regenerated separately, especially if multi-factor authentication is enabled.
Preventing this next time
Set up a password manager to generate and store complex passwords so you're not relying on memory, and make sure your account recovery options (a personal email and phone number, kept current) are filled in before you actually need them. For work accounts, ask your IT department whether self-service password reset is enabled — if it isn't, lobbying for it can save real time the next time this happens to anyone on the team.