“Another account from your organization is already signed in”: how to fix it

What the message means

You’ll see this when activating or signing in to Word, Excel, Outlook or PowerPoint, usually as Another account from your organization is already signed in on this device. Try again with a different account. Older versions word it as signed in on this computer.

Microsoft’s support article says the error is expected when another Microsoft 365 account from the same organization is already signed in. This can happen on a shared or reused PC, when you also have a second work account from the same company (an admin account, for example), or when an old account was left behind after a username change. If you genuinely only use one account, the cause is stale sign-in data, and the steps below clear it.

Before you change anything, close all Office apps. Most fixes don’t touch your files, but they do sign you out, so make sure you know your password and have your sign-in method (such as the Authenticator app) ready.

Fix 1: Sign out of every Office account

Open Word, go to File > Account and select Sign out under User Information. If more than one account appears under Switch account, sign out of each. Close every Office app, restart the PC, then open Word and sign in with only the account that holds your license.

Fix 2: Clear the cached Office sign-ins

This is the main Windows step in Microsoft’s article. With all Office apps closed:

• Press Win + R, type %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneAuth and press Enter. Delete all the folders inside.
• Do the same for %localappdata%\Microsoft\IdentityCache.
• Restart, open an Office app and sign in with the account you want.

There’s a gentler version if you’d rather keep one account signed in: in %localappdata%\Microsoft\OneAuth\accounts each file is one account. Open them in Notepad, find the one for the account you don’t want (its address appears under account_hints), and in its association_status section change "com.microsoft.Office":"associated" to "disassociated". Save, then reopen Office.

Fix 3: Check Access work or school

Open Settings > Accounts > Access work or school. Microsoft suggests that if the account you use for Office isn’t the one you sign in to Windows with, and it’s listed here, you select it, choose Disconnect, restart and try again.

Be careful on a work PC. To see how the PC is connected, run dsregcmd /status in Command Prompt. If AzureAdJoined or DomainJoined says YES, the PC is managed by your organization: don’t disconnect anything and ask IT instead. Microsoft notes that disconnecting a registered work account removes single sign-on and unregisters the device from management, so you’ll have to sign in to everything again.

Fix 4: Clear the sign-in broker cache

Office on Windows signs in through a built-in component Microsoft calls the AAD broker plugin. Microsoft’s article lists clearing its token cache as an additional fix. Close Office, then delete the contents of these two folders (paste each into Win + R):

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.AAD.BrokerPlugin_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\TokenBroker\Accounts
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Packages\Microsoft.Windows.CloudExperienceHost_cw5n1h2txyewy\AC\TokenBroker\Accounts

Restart and sign in again. The same article also asks you to make sure antivirus, VPN, proxy or firewall software isn’t blocking that broker component.

Fix 5: Run Microsoft’s sign-in troubleshooter

Microsoft points to the Office sign-in troubleshooter in the Get Help app. Open aka.ms/SaRA-OfficeSignIn-sarahome in a browser and choose Open when asked to launch Get Help. It’s also worth updating Office first, from File > Account > Update Options > Update Now, and installing pending Windows updates.

Fix 6: Reset Office activation (IT or advanced users)

If none of the above works, Microsoft’s article on resetting Microsoft 365 activation clears everything Office knows about licenses and accounts. The simplest route is the activation troubleshooter at aka.ms/SaRA-OfficeActivation-sarahome. The manual route includes deleting %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office\Licenses, removing Office entries from Control Panel > Credential Manager > Windows Credentials, and deleting two registry keys:

HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Licensing
HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Common\Identity

Back up the registry before deleting keys. On Entra-joined PCs Microsoft provides admin scripts for this (OLicenseCleanup.vbs and signoutofwamaccounts.ps1), which need administrator rights, so this is normally IT’s job. Admins can also remove and reassign the user’s Microsoft 365 license in the admin center. If activation fails with a different message, see our guide to Word product activation failed.

On a Mac

Microsoft’s article gives one command for Mac. Quit all Office apps, open Terminal and run:

defaults write com.microsoft.Word ResetOneAuthCreds -bool YES

Then open Word and sign in. Many users also report success with Help > Clear Application Data in an Office app, though Microsoft doesn’t document that for this error.

Related guides

• Word Product Activation Failed: 7 Ways to Fix It
• How to Remove an Account from Teams (Windows, Phone, Web)
• How to find your Office product key (and when you don’t need one)
• How to reset Outlook to default settings (classic and new Outlook)

Official sources

• Microsoft 365 apps activation error: another account from your organization is already signed in (Microsoft Learn)
• Reset Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise activation state (Microsoft Learn)