How to Change the Account Order in Outlook

Organize your accounts in order by name or by moving them

By
Heinz Tschabitscher
Heinz Tschabitscher
Heinz Tschabitscher
Writer
  • University of Vienna
A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997.
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Updated on October 12, 2021
Reviewed by
Jon Fisher
Jon Fisher headshot
Reviewed by Jon Fisher
  • Wichita Technical Institute
Jonathan Fisher is a CompTIA certified technologist with more than 6 years' experience writing for publications like TechNorms and Help Desk Geek.
lifewire's editorial guidelines

What to Know

  • Outlook 2010 and later: Collapse all accounts. Click and hold an account and drag it to a new position.
  • Outlook 2007: File > Info > Account Settings > Manage Data Files > Data Files tab > select account > Settings > add number to the name.

This article explains how to change the account order in Outlook 2010 and newer and in Outlook 2007.

How to Change Account Order in Outlook 2010 and Later

If you use Outlook to access multiple email accounts, you may prefer to see them in a different order from the one Outlook uses to display them. If you use the Unified Inbox in recent Outlook versions, you can receive mail sorted by email account.

Beginning with Office 2010, ordering how your email accounts show up in Outlook is only a matter of using your mouse to drag and drop accounts in the order you want them to display. This process is much easier if you collapse the accounts ahead of time to make them easier to sort.

Here's how that works:

  1. Open Outlook and collapse all the accounts so that only the account names are visible.

    To collapse accounts, select the arrow to the left of the account name.

    collapsing accounts in Outlook

  2. Click and hold the account you want to move and then drag the account up or down to a different position.

    moving accounts in Outlook

  3. Close and reopen Outlook. The email accounts are sorted in the order you set.

    You may find that the changes take effect immediately, without needing the close and re-open Outlook.

    reordered accounts in Outlook

To reorder the accounts again, drag an account name to move it to a different location.

Change Account Order in Outlook 2007

For Outlook 2007, the default order lists your default account first, followed by the others in alphabetic order.

To reorder the email accounts, rename the accounts starting with a number. Then, the alphabetic sorting results in the accounts being displayed in your preferred order.

  1. Open the Outlook desktop app.

  2. Go to the File tab and select Info.

  3. Select Account Settings and choose Manage Profiles.

  4. In the Mail Setup dialog box, select Data Files.

    Manage Profiles in Outlook

  5. In the Account Settings window, select the Data Files tab.

    Data Files in Outlook

  6. Choose the account you want to rename and select Settings.

  7. Place a number in front of the account name in the order you want the account to display.

    renaming accounts in Outlook

  8. Select OK.

  9. Close the Account Settings dialog box.

  10. Close the Mail Setup dialog box.

When you're done, Outlook lists the accounts in the main window in the order that you numbered the account names.

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