Outlook.com Personal Account - Unable to Set default From address

Question

Outlook.com Personal Account - Unable to Set default From address

Hornblower409 8,190

Outlook.com personal account with a two aliases:

User's image

Using New Outlook for Windows or Outlook Web unable to "Set default From address".
The drop down to select an alias is always empty.

User's image

But using New Outlook for Windows or Outlook Web the alias is available in the "From" dropdown when composing a new email.

User's image

Tested with two personal Outlook.com accounts.
Waited 48 hours after changing the Primary Alias.

How can I set the default From address to anything except the Primary?

oztech 5 Reputation points

2026-04-27T14:31:08.8533333+00:00

It is not just you, I noticed this on a family member's account today that I was just migrating over to a new 11 PC. However, I am not using Outlook (new) just the Outlook Web access via Outlook.com

Same Outlook.com personal setup (using premium via M365) but they have about 3-4 aliases. It seems to have remembered the original 'default from address' I originally set up within Outlook.com settings several years ago. That is, if they go to create a new email in Outlook.com, it uses the correct alias (not their primary alias) that I configured as the default.

It's just not visible in the box, and the actual drop down interface isn't working at all.

*edit woops. posted as answer. converted to comment.
Hornblower409 8,190 Reputation points

2026-04-27T16:21:18.0466667+00:00

@oztech said

I am not using Outlook (new) just the Outlook Web access via Outlook.com

Based on my testing the problem is present in both New Outlook for Windows and Outlook Web.

It seems to have remembered the original 'default from address' I originally set up within Outlook.com settings several years ago. That is, if they go to create a new email in Outlook.com, it uses the correct alias (not their primary alias) that I configured as the default.

Yes. I am seeing the same behavior in New Outlook for Windows. It "remembers" the previous Primary alias, or the last "Set default From" value, and keeps using it even of the Primary alais has been changed. But if you remove and re-add the email account it will then make the current Primary the default Send From, and (because of this problem) there is no way to change it.

I can't test in Outlook Web, but my guess would be that if you Sign-Out of the account and then sign-back in using the new Primary alias as the account email, that it will forget the old settings and make the current Primary the default Send From.

Thank you very much for the confirmation report.