There are a wide variety of reasons to create a new Outlook profile which would include reasons like
- multiple people using the same machine with different accounts
- needing one profile for travelling outside your area and another locally
- changing server or password details for an email account
- trying to resolve an unexplained problem
Making changes to the current profile being used by Outlook can be done directly from within Outlook via
- OL’2007 –> OL menu –> Tools –> Account Settings
- OL’2010/’2016 –> OL menu –> File –> Account Settings
Adding/deleting a new profile can only be done via the Control Panel <Mail> app. If a 2 side-by-side installations of Outlook exists, you will have two <Mail> apps appear in the Control Panel. In this case, it’s important that the correct one is selected since any additions, changes or deletions made to the profiles of one version will not apply to the other version. The Control Panel <Mail> app can be accessed via the Control Panel’s Large/Small Icon view or via the Category view as shown below (this example uses Win 10 but essentially identical for earlier Windows version)
Via the Icon view
Via the Control Panel Category View – Step 1
Via the Control Panel Category View – Step 2
There are 3 options that appear when the <Mail> app is opened
- opens the email tab showing all email accounts in the current default Outlook profile
- opens the data file tab showing the data file tab listing all data files configured in the current default Outlook profile
- displays all available Outlook profiles for the specific version of Outlook that the Mail app applies to
Clicking on the <Show Profiles> button results in the following where you have the option to add/remove/copy a profile or make changes to one that already exists
- this option provides the ability to create a new Outlook profile from scratch. When you have been instructed to create a new Outlook profile in an attempt to resolve some unexplained problem, this would be the right choice. While it does require that each email account involved needs to be configured, it ensures that no potential issues are carried over by <Copying> the potentially problematic profile and then making changes to it
- does exactly as the name implies, it removes an existing profile. If you’re creating a new profile to try and resolve a problem, there is no need benefit in first removing the original profile. In fact, a profile should only be removed once you are absolutely certain that it is no longer required especially if it contains OL’2013/’2016 IMAP email accounts since that will orphan the .ost files associated with those accounts
- this option enables making changes to the selected profile
- this option does exactly as the name implies, makes an exact copy of an existing profile where you can give it a different name. This option shouldn’t be used if dealing with a problematic profile for the reasons mentioned in #1
- it’s important to set any newly created profile as the default (or force Outlook to prompt) for the next time Outlook opens otherwise it will simply use the original which can lead to problems if trying to trouble-shoot. By forgetting this step, could easily mistakenly appear that the same problems still exist