[Fix] We were Unable to Make Your Primary Alias Error in Outlook.com (Microsoft Account)

In this article, we’ll discuss a very annoying issue encountered by several users having an Outlook.com or a legacy Hotmail/msn/live email ID. When they try to change their primary email ID or alias, they receive “We were unable to make outlook.com your primary alias. Please try again later.” error message.

Recently an AskVG reader contacted me regarding this issue. He was facing problems while trying to set an alias as primary account ID in his Microsoft Account (MSA). Whenever he tried to set an alias as primary ID, outlook displayed following error message in red color:

We were unable to make xyz@outlook.com your primary alias. Please try again later.

Following screenshot shows the error message displayed by outlook.com while trying to set an alias as primary ID in Microsoft Account:

What is an Alias in Microsoft Account?

If you are not aware, Microsoft allows outlook.com or hotmail.com email users to create multiple aliases under the same email account which can be used just like a real email account to sign into Microsoft services or send/receive emails. Users can also enable or disable sign-in preferences for aliases so that no one can use the alias to sign into primary account.

For example, if you need multiple email accounts to use in office, schools, personal use, etc, you don’t need to create new email accounts. You can create new aliases under your single Microsoft account and then use the aliases in different places without any worry to manage multiple email accounts.

Here Microsoft Account means an email account having @hotmail.com, @outlook.com, @live.com, @msn.com, etc domains. Almost all of use use Microsoft Account to sign into various Microsoft services such as Skype, OneDrive, Teams, Microsoft Office, Microsoft 365, Xbox, Windows operating system, etc.

How to Create an Alias in Microsoft Account?

You can create new alias or change primary alias using following direct link:

Create or Manage Alias in Your Microsoft Account

Alternatively, you can sign into your hotmail, outlook, msn, etc email account using outlook.com website and then click on your user picture icon or avatar present at the top-right corner of the Inbox page and select “My Microsoft account” link. Now click on “Your Info” link present at the top menu bar and at last click on “Edit account info” link present under “Account info” section.

Now you can create new alias by clicking on “Add email” or “Add phone number” links. To make an alias as primary ID, you can click on “Make primary” option given next to the alias name. To delete an alias, you can click on “Remove” option given next to the alias name.

To enable/disable sign-in capability for aliases, click on “Change sign-in preferences” link and turn on/off sign-in feature for desired aliases.

[Problem] Unable to Set Alias as Primary ID in Microsoft Account

Now let’s come to the problem! The reader wanted to replace his very old hotmail.com email ID with a new outlook.com alias for safety reasons. His old hotmail.com email account was shared on multiple websites and now he wanted to hide that old email ID by changing the primary alias in his Microsoft Account.

Here is what he wanted to do:

• Set a new @outlook.com alias as primary account ID which will not be shared with anyone.
• Disable sign-in functionality for the previous hotmail alias so that no one can use it to sign in.

By doing this, he could keep sharing old email ID with others and could also prevent anyone from logging into his old hotmail.com email account. He could access his old hotmail and new outlook email accounts using the new outlook.com alias which was not shared with anyone else.

But whenever he clicked on “Make primary” button given next to the alias, Outlook.com displayed “Unable to make your primary alias. Please try again later” error message.

[Fix] Reason Behind Outlook doesn’t Allow Changing Primary Alias in Microsoft Account

After receiving email from the reader, I also tested the issue using my very old hotmail account. I created an alias and when I tried to set it as primary, I also received the same error message. I tried to click on “Remove” button given next to the primary ID, Outlook displayed “Before you can remove this alias, choose another one to be your primary alias.” error message. Since changing primary alias was not allowed, removing the old account ID was also not possible.

When I looked on official Microsoft community, I found 1000+ topics created by outlook.com email account users facing similar issue. They were also unable to change primary alias in their Microsoft Accounts. There was not a single topic containing any solution. One or two users shared that they were able to convince Microsoft support that the issue was occurring from server side and the level 2 team used their advanced tools to manually rename their primary account ID. But that was rare as it was not easy to convince the support team. Microsoft support keeps requesting to clear browser cache/cookies, wait for 24 hours for server reset/refresh, etc.

Finally I was able to find the reason behind this weird issue. I found an official documentation about adding/removing alias in outlook.com at Microsoft website. You can read the documentation at following link:

Official Microsoft Documentation Page about Managing Outlook.com Alias

I noticed following important note given at the website:

That’s the culprit behind the problem. Microsoft doesn’t allow users to create a new alias using old or legacy domains such as hotmail, live or msn. When we try to set an alias as primary in our old hotmail/live/msn email account, Outlook needs to first make the existing legacy ID as alias and here the main problem occurs.

Since Microsoft restricts users from adding hotmail/msn/live.com accounts as alias, Outlook can’t make the existing old email ID (which is hotmail/msn/live) as alias due to Microsoft policy which results the inability to set another alias as primary and that’s why Outlook throws the error message.

So it’ll never be possible to change primary email ID in your very old hotmail/msn/live email account as it’s blocked by Microsoft servers.

Same thing applies to a school or work/organization account. If your Microsoft Account is or was a part of any organization, you might also not able to change primary alias as the official documentation page also mentioned it in following line:

In my opinion, the error message should mention the problem clearly so that users don’t get confused and irritated.

Limit How Frequently You can Add Aliases to Your Outlook Account

Microsoft also limits how many aliases you can make per day, week or year. Sometimes while creating new alias, you might receive following error message:

Following screenshot shows the error message appearing in red color on Outlook.com website:

Users receive the limit warning message as there are following restrictions applied on Outlook aliases creation by Microsoft:

• Total aliases limit: You can create a total of 10 aliases for your account.
• Annual or yearly aliases limit: You can create up to 10 aliases in one year.
• Weekly aliases limit: You can create up to 2 aliases in one week.

So if you have already created 2 aliases for your Outlook account and you try to create another, you’ll receive the limit warning message as you have reached the 2 aliases per week limit.

To fix the limit issue, you’ll need to wait for 6-7 days and you’ll be able to create new aliases next week.

NOTE: Deleting an existing alias doesn’t bypass the annual or weekly limit. If you delete an existing alias in order to create a new alias and you have reached the weekly or yearly limit, you’ll still receive the limit warning message.

TIP: If you delete or remove an alias, you’ll never be able to add or claim the same alias again in future in the same or different Microsoft Account as Microsoft doesn’t recycle the alias names to prevent misuse.

To protect your Microsoft Account, you can turn on 2-factor authentication (also known as 2-step verification) feature which requires to enter an OTP sent to your email, mobile number or an authenticator app installed on your smartphone to sign into the account in addition to the password.

How to Enable 2-Step Verification Feature in Your Microsoft Account?

You can also add a hardware (FIDO) security key or enable passwordless feature in your Microsoft Account to improve the security of your account:

[Tip] How to Enable Passwordless Login in Your Microsoft Account