Create or edit users

As the Office 365 admin, you need to create a user account for everyone in your organization who uses Office 365 services. When you create or edit a user account, you can also assign licenses to the user and set a user’s administrative permissions. You can also delete an account if it is no longer needed.

Watch: How to add users to Office 365

To create a single user account

  1. Go to Admin > Office 365 > Users and groups > Add Add.
  2. On the Details page, complete the user information. To add optional user information, click the arrow next to Additional details. When you’re finished, click Next.
  3. On the Settings page, click Yes if you want to assign the user admin permissions.

If you clicked Yes, select an admin role. If you have chosen to give the user an admin role, you also need to provide an Alternate email address. See Assigning admin roles for more information.

  1. Under Set user location, select the user’s work location, and then click Next.
  2. On the Assign licenses page, select the licenses that you want to assign to the user, and then click Next.

If you have no licenses available, you can remove licenses from existing users who no longer need them, or delete user accounts that are no longer needed to free up licenses. See Assign or remove a license for more information.

  1. On the Send results in email page, select Send email, type your email address, and then click Create.

You can enter a total of five email addresses.

  1. Review the information on the Results page, and then click Finish or click Create another user to repeat the process.

Some changes may take time to apply across multiple services.

If your organization uses more than one domain, here are some things to be aware of when you create a user account:

  • You can create user accounts with the same user principal name (UPN) across domains if the first account you create is, for example, geoff@contoso.onmicrosoft.com. That account must use the “onmicrosoft” portion of the domain name. You could then also create the account geoff@contoso.com.
  • You cannot create geoff@contoso.com followed by geoff@contoso.onmicrosoft.com.


 Notes 

What do you want to do?

Edit a user

 Important    If the user that you are trying to edit is synchronized with your Active Directory service, an error message appears. You’ll be unable to edit the user using this procedure. To edit the user, use your local Active Directory management tools.

Use this procedure to edit a single user’s information.

  1. Go to Admin > Office 365 > Users and groups.
  2. On the Active users page, click the user that you want to edit, and then click Edit Edit.
  3. Click the Details, Settings, Licenses, or More tabs, depending on the changes that you want to make.
  4. Complete your changes, and then click Save.

To learn more about assigning admin permissions, see Assigning admin roles.

To learn more about assigning and removing licenses, see Assign or remove a license.

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Edit multiple users

 Important    If the users that you want to edit are synchronized with your Active Directory service, you won’t be able to complete this procedure; the changes won’t be applied on the Results page. To edit multiple users, use your local Active Directory management tools.

Use this procedure to edit user information or assign licenses for multiple users.

  1. Go to Admin > Office 365 > Users and groups.
  2. On the Active users page, click the users that you want to edit, and then click Edit Edit.
  3. On the Details and Settings pages, edit the information as needed, and then click Next. Or, just click Next if you have no changes to make on those pages.
  4. On the Assign licenses page, do one of the following, and then click Submit:
  • If you’re not making any changes to the existing license assignments, click Retain current license assignments.
  • To replace existing license assignments, click Replace existing license assignments, and then choose one or more licenses from the list.
  • To add licenses to the existing license assignments, click Add to existing license assignments, and then choose one or more licenses from the list.
  1. Review the information on the Results page, and then click Finish.

Some changes may take time to apply across multiple services.

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Delete one or more users

To delete one or more users:

  1. Go to Admin > Office 365 > Users and groups.
  2. On the Active users page, click the user or users that you want to delete, and then click Delete Delete.
  3. In the confirmation message, click Yes.

To learn more about deleting users, and restoring them, see Delete or restore users.

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Applies to:
Office 365 Enterprise admin, Office 365 Midsize Business admin