Outlook keeps asking for your password? Here’s the fix

Outlook is one of the most widely used email client platform for business communication. It provides easy to use interface with top security protocols for effective secure communication. Still, Outlook users sometimes face certain issues and one of them is that Outlook keeps asking for password. Therefore, for solving this issue you can find below a simple and easy to follow the list of possible solutions:

SOLVED: Outlook keeps asking for password

1. Reset the login settings for Outlook through Windows Credentials Manage
2. Check credential settings
3. Clear the cached passwords
4. Enable Remember password
5. Create a new profile
6. Install the latest update for Outlook
7. Disable your antivirus program temporarily or boot into Safe mode
8. Start Outlook in safe mode and disable add-ins
9. Outlook Anywhere is configured to use NTLM Authentication
10. Slow or unstable network connection

Solution 1: Reset the login settings for Outlook

The first solution you can try is resetting the login settings for Outlook through Windows Credentials Manager. In order to do that, please follow the steps described below:

1. Go to Control Panel and click on Credentials Manager
2. Navigate to User accounts and go to Credential Manager
3. In the Windows Credentials and Generic Credentialssection, remove any stored credentials referencing the Office 365 or ms.outlook email addresses
4. Click on  Details  and choose  Remove from vaults
5. Click yes on the warning box
6. repeat the steps until you remove all of the credentials associated with your email address

Solution 2: Check credential settings

If the first solution did not work out for you, you could also try to verify if the option Prompt for credentials is not checked in profile as this could be another cause for this message keeping to pop out. In order to check this:

1. Start Outlook and go to File 
2. choose Account settings in the Account settings section
3. Select your exchange account
4. Click the Change button and go to More settings
5. Select the Security tab
6. Under the user identification, make sure the Always prompt for logon credentials option is not selected
7. Click OK and restart Outlook

Solution 3: Clear the cached passwords

Your Windows system stores user credentials on your computer. If the cached credentials are incorrect, you will be prompted for password again and again

1. Exit Outlook
2. Click Start and go to Control Panel
3. navigate to Credential Manager and locate  the set of credentials that has Outlook in the name
4. click the name to expand the set of credentials, and then click Remove from Vault

Note: Repeat step no. 4 for any additional sets of credentials that have the word Outlook in the name.

Solution 4: Enable Remember password

Another suggestion is to verify whether you have selected the option to save username and password in Outlook. To verify that, please follow the below-mentioned steps:

1. Click on the File tab and go to Account settings
2. double click the account under the email tab
3. A new window will appear and you should check the option Remember password

Solution 5: Create a new profile

There might just be a bug somewhere in the profile, in which case building a new profile will get things right again. In order to do this, please follow the steps below:

1. Exit Outlook
2. Go to Control Panel and click on Mail
3. Go to Show profiles and then click Add
4. Type the name of the profile and click OK
5. Enter your name and email
6. Click Next and then click on Finish
7. Back in the mail window, select your new profile in the Always use this profile dialogue box and then click OK

Another solution you can use is to simply switch to another mail client app. We strongly recommend you to check Mailbird (the best on the market right now) and eM Client. These two tools have thousands of downloads daily and great reviews from the users. You can add multiple accounts to these apps and they have great client support, so any problem will be solved a short time.

Solution 6: Install the latest update for Outlook

It is important to always keep your software up to date so that vulnerabilities are fixed and new features can be added. Follow the simple steps below to check for Outlook updates and make sure that updates can be automatically downloaded and applied.

Note: The instructions below are for the Microsoft Outlook email program that is installed on a computer.

1. Open Outlook and go to File
2. Choose Office Account and click on Update optionsbutton
3. Select Update Now from the menu to check for new updates to Outlook

Solution 7: Disable your antivirus program temporarily or boot into Safe mode

The antivirus program could be interfering with Outlook if it uses an add-in or firewall. If Outlook checks for and sends mail fine after doing one of these two actions, reinstall the antivirus program.

Solution 8: Start Outlook in Safe Mode and disable add-ins

When you open Outlook in Safe Mode, it starts without extensions or custom toolbar settings. In order to do this, the simplest way is to hold down the Ctrl key as you are opening the Outlook shortcut.

Note: Opening Outlook in safe mode does not involve using Windows in safe mode— they are two different aspects. You can boot into Safe Mode and then open MS Outlook (normally or in safe mode) but only booting into Safe Mode does not automatically start the Outlook application in safe mode.

In order to remove Outlook add-ins:

1. Go to File  and click on Options
2. select Add-ins in the left panel. This will open a new pop-up showing you all the add-ins where you can view and manage all your Add-ins installed
3. Click on the add-in you want to remove and another small window will pop-up. Click on Remove button

If the error disappears, then there is a problem with one of the add-ins and you need to disable it, delete it or troubleshoot how to fix it.

Solution 9: Outlook Anywhere is not configured to use NTLM Authentication

The Outlook Anywhere feature allows you to access your Exchange account remotely from the Internet when you are working outside your organization’s firewall. When using Outlook Anywhere to connect to your Exchange server, we need to choose the authentication method among Basic Authentication, NTLM Authentication and Negotiate Authentication. Users reported that using NTLM Authentication can significantly reduce the number of password prompts. In order to do that, follow the steps described below:

1. Navigate to File and click on Account Settings choosing Account Settings option once again
2. Select the Exchange account and click Change
3. Click on More settings and then go to Connection tab
4. Click the Exchange Proxy settings button and under Proxy authentication settings, choose NTLM Authentication

Solution 10: Slow or unstable network connection

Another cause for Outlook keeps asking for password could be that your network connection is slow or unstable. Outlook may lose connection to the mail server and when trying to reconnect, it will prompt for credentials. The solution is to switch to a more stable network environment and then check if this issue persists.