Outlook keeps asking for your password: how to fix it

Outlook pops up a window asking for your password — you type it, and it comes back a little later, again and again? It’s almost always an old saved credential or a security requirement from your email provider. Follow the steps in order.

In this article

1. Step 1: confirm the password is right
2. Step 2: clear saved credentials in Windows
3. Step 3: Microsoft 365 — sign out of and back in to your Office account
4. Step 4: Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and providers with two-step verification
5. Step 5: the setting that forces the prompt
6. FAQ

Step 1: confirm the password is right

Sign in to your email’s webmail in a browser (for example, outlook.office.com for Microsoft 365). If the password doesn’t work there either, it changed or expired — reset it with your provider or IT first.

Step 2: clear saved credentials in Windows

Windows keeps the old password and keeps using it.

1. Close Outlook.
2. Press Windows + R and run control keymgr.dll to open Credential Manager.
3. Under Windows Credentials and Generic Credentials, remove entries that start with MicrosoftOffice, Outlook or your mail server’s address.
4. Open Outlook and type the password once, checking Remember my credentials.

Step 3: Microsoft 365 — sign out of and back in to your Office account

1. In Outlook, open File › Office Account.
2. Under User Information, click Sign out, close all Office apps and open Outlook again.
3. Sign in with your work account and complete two-step verification if asked.

Step 4: Gmail, Yahoo, iCloud and providers with two-step verification

These services don’t accept your regular password in apps like Outlook when two-step verification is on. Add the account again using the provider’s sign-in (when Outlook opens Google’s sign-in screen, for example), or create an app password in your account’s security settings and use it in Outlook. See how to turn on two-factor authentication.

Step 5: the setting that forces the prompt

For Exchange/Microsoft 365 accounts, make sure Outlook isn’t set to always ask for the password:

1. File › Account Settings › Account Settings, select the account and click Change.
2. More Settings › Security: uncheck Always prompt for logon credentials.

FAQ

The prompts started out of nowhere, without me changing anything.

Your company or provider may have changed the sign-in method, or your password expired. Do steps 2 and 3; at work, tell IT.

I’m getting sign-in approval requests I didn’t make.

Someone may be trying to get into your account. Don’t approve them, change your password and see email hacked: what to do.

Outlook won’t even open.

That’s a different problem — see Outlook won’t open.