Completely remove Outlook up and start afresh

Question

I want to delete all my Outlook accounts, remove all configurations and everything and start afresh. Basically, like do a complete reset. But, it doesn't let me remove my last account saying something about data files and all. How do I nuke Outlook and start afresh? I'm using Outlook 2013

Answer 1

To ensure you get a complete reset, uninstall it, delete the data files and reinstall.

Here are instructions to help if you need them; Install or remove individual Office programs and components

Answer 2

Re-installing is waste of time...

just go to control panel>>mail(32bit)>>show profiles>delete all profiles here.

then open the outlook, you will be opening an fresh account.

NOTE:1.before deleting don't forget to take mail backup.

NOTE:2. On windows 8, 8.1 and 10 you can use windows + x and select Control Panel.

Answer 3

Shockingly, you can delete all your profiles and even uninstall, reboot, and reinstall Outlook and still have nasty issues that linger.

Some stuff that will not be reset includes....

• Any VBA scrips
• Any ribbon bar customizations
• The database of which emails have already been downloaded via POP3

...and lots of other stuff that can haunt you.

To completely reset Outlook, you must....

1. Uninstall the Outlook application
2. Delete all the profiles
3. Delete the tree under the registry key [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office] (or you can go in and only delete the sub-trees for your Outlook version if you want to keep state for other Office applications)
4. Delete (or rename to a .bak) the folder C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Office or %localappdata%\Microsoft\Office
5. Delete (or rename to a .bak) the folder C:\Users\[your user name]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Office or %appdata%\Microsoft\Office
6. Delete (or just don't use) the previous PST file.

I only know all this because I had a nasty problem where Outlook started downloading messages over POP3 and then deleting them. Deleting all profiles, PST files, and uninstalling/reinstalling did not solve the problem. Only after following all the above steps did the problem go away. I still can't figure out exactly where the POP3 messages database is actually stored.