Microsoft account: Users will remain logged in from Feb. 2025

Sicherheit (Pexels, allgemeine Nutzung)[German]Brief information for users who sign in to services online with Microsoft accounts. From February 2025, Microsoft wants to keep users signed in when they leave the service. This could become a problem if multiple users or accounts are used and there is no logout.


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The Verge published the information a few days ago in this article. Blog readers had pointed this out (thank you). Until now, when signing in to a Microsoft account, the user is asked whether they want to stay signed in. If the user agrees, this saves the user from having to sign in the next time they access the service (e.g. OneDrive). The user is then automatically logged in.

I don't usually sign in permanently when I access Microsoft services. This also prevents someone from accidentally signing in to my accounts in the browser or me being signed in to the wrong Microsoft account.

From February 2025, the option will be removed and the user will automatically remain signed in to the Microsoft account. As long as someone only uses one device, this is not a problem. But it could become problematic if you use multiple devices and don't want settings to be synchronized. It becomes even more problematic if several people use one device or if someone has signed in to the Microsoft account on a publicly accessible computer. There is then a risk of third parties accessing accounts because the user is still logged in.

The remedy is to always explicitly log out of your Microsoft account after using a Microsoft service. Bolko wrote: "If you only have one device, it probably doesn't matter. However, if you have several devices and they can be used by several people, then you supposedly have to log out again afterwards or close the browser before shutting down."

German blogger Martin Martin oints outt that it is possible to log out of your account on all devices in the Microsoft account under the advanced security settings. Microsoft has documented this in this support article.


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The other option is to use private mode in the browser for surfing. In this case, the relevant data is deleted when the browser window is closed.

Addenum: It's not comming, see Microsoft account: Users do not stay logged in after all.


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