If you created a Microsoft account for the sole purpose of using Windows 10 but have since decided against it, there is no reason to fret. Deleting your Microsoft account completely may take up some of your time but in the end you will be able to use a local account without any of the privacy implications that an online account brings and without you needing to be confined to the company’s ecosystem.
Delete the account from your Windows 10 PC
Before you proceed to do anything else, you will have to sign in a different account than the one you are planning on deleting. That account can either be a local one or another Microsoft account, it really does not matter. Accounts can be created in the Settings > Accounts > Your account menu. For more detailed information, check out our guide on managing user accounts in Windows 10.
Once you sign in the other account, head over to that same “Your account” menu and scroll down till you see your Microsoft account. Click on it and you will see two buttons: Manage and Remove. Click on the Remove button and confirm your choice by clicking on “Yes”. And thus the first part of the account deletion process is complete.
Delete the Microsoft account completely
There is no way to completely delete a Microsoft account from the Windows 10 settings so you will have to go online and delete it from the company’s website instead. Sign in to your account here and make sure that you empty out your wallet, cancel your subscriptions and backed up all information that you may want to keep for later. This is the last chance you have so spend some time going through the menus to check if you have left something behind.
After you are all done, follow this link to get yourself to the “Close account” page on the Microsoft website. The company will inform you about some necessary precautions you should take including disabling the reset protection in your Windows phone so that you do not find yourself locked out from your phone. Once you have confirmed that everything is ready to go, click on the “Next” button.
Microsoft will require you to tick six different boxes that confirm you know what you are doing and that closing your Microsoft account means that you will lose access to your email, that your Xbox account may not work properly and so forth. This is very obvious stuff and you should already know that deleting your account will also make associated services unavailable. After you tick all the boxes, give Microsoft a reason for closing your account and click on the “Mark account for closure” button. Do note that you have up to 60 days to regret your decision and contact Microsoft about taking your account back but after that period, everything will be gone forever.
