Easy Way To Switch Between Outlook Profiles

A profile is what Outlook uses to remember the e-mail accounts and the settings that tell Outlook where your e-mail is stored. A new profile is created automatically when you run Outlook for the first time. The created profile runs whenever you start Outlook. Most people need only one profile. However, sometimes you might find it useful to have more than one profile.

For example, you might want one profile for work and another profile for home. Also, if other people use the same computer as you, their accounts and settings can be kept in a separate profile that has a different name from your profile.

You cannot switch between profiles while Outlook is running. To change profiles, you must exit Outlook, and then select the appropriate profile when you restart Outlook.

Important: Profiles in Outlook are similar to identities in Outlook Express but have no relation to hardware and software profiles in the Microsoft Windows operating system.

How To Easily Switch Between Profiles in Outlook:

You cannot switch to a different profile within Outlook. However, if you maintain two or more Outlook profiles that you use regularly, you can configure Outlook so you have the opportunity to select which profile you want to access when you start Outlook.

Make sure Outlook is closed, and open Mail in Control Panel.

Select Show Profiles. For the “When Starting Microsoft Outlook, Use This Profile” setting, select Prompt For A Profile To Be Used.

Click OK, and then restart Outlook to open the Choose Profile dialog box where you can select from the Profile Name list or even create a new profile on the fly.

If you want to set the selected profile as the default, click Set As Default Profile at the bottom of the dialog box before clicking OK. If this check box is hidden, just click the Options button at the right to reveal the Options section.

Multiple Profiles / Multiple Emails In Single Profile? : Note that with Outlook 2010, you can now include multiple e-mail accounts from an Exchange server in a single profile. It used to be that you had to create a new profile for each Exchange account.