How to completely remove mail address or ghost mail address

Thomas BP 0 Reputation points
2026-08-31T17:44:10.0666667+00:00

Trying to share my family subscription with my wife. New Mac was needed to go to school.
Sharing the link is fine, but when activating the information boks informs us "it appears the the mail is already in use" and we can do nothing. Not even create a new account.

The issues is that 7 years ago she was using a work subscription and used her personal email as backup for reset password etc.

Now the system informs, she is already a user. But this is not the case, and we cannot go to former employer to have a 7 years old account deleted (again).

Question: How can we make the system remove the former backup mail, completely remove everything? We would appreciate to use the existing mail as the domain is linked to family name.

Any ideas?

Thanks

T

Microsoft 365 and Office | Subscription, account, billing | For home | MacOS
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  1. Norah-L 10,490 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2026-09-01T06:53:04.9833333+00:00

    Hello Thomas BP,

    I understand that your wife cannot accept the Microsoft 365 Family invitation because her email address is reportedly already in use.

    A recovery email on an old work account normally does not prevent it from being used for a personal Microsoft account. More likely, the email is already registered as an existing Microsoft account, or she is already in another Microsoft family group.

    Question: How can we make the system remove the former backup mail, completely remove everything? We would appreciate to use the existing mail as the domain is linked to family name.

    If her personal email was added as a recovery method for the old work account, it can only be removed from that old work account’s security settings.

    I suggest trying the following:

    1. Open a private/incognito browser window and sign in at Microsoft account using her email address. If recognized, select Forgot password instead of creating another account.
    2. Accept the invitation again while signed in to that personal Microsoft account.
    3. Check Microsoft Family and leave any existing family group before accepting the new invitation.
    4. If necessary, cancel the pending invitation and send a new one from the subscription owner’s sharing page

    If it still does not work, please share the exact error message or a screenshot of the page where it appears, with all personal information hidden.

    Please let me know how it goes after trying these steps, and I'll be glad to continue looking into it with you.

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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