Office 365 help series – Changing passwords using OWA
Password security
It is good practice to change email passwords occasionally. Sometimes, ComStat may ask you to change passwords if we suspect that a third party has compromised your account. If you have forgotten your password, we can force a password change.
Users are responsible for their passwords at all times. If we force a password change, users should log in to their email accounts and overwrite forced password changes with passwords of their own. Good passwords include:
- 8-15 characters
- Capital letters
- Numbers
- Special characters
Email passwords cannot be changed using your desktop version of Outlook. To change your email account password, login to your Office 365 online control panel with your email address and existing password with a web browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Chrome.
There is more than one way to change passwords in Office 365. For instance, users can log into http://portal.office365.com and locate settings from the portal home page. Users are familiar with Outlook Web Access, so the tutorial here should be a convenient method.
Read this article first before you begin. Click open each step below to understand the steps you need to follow. If you need to contact us to force a password for you, get in touch with your usual network administrator or contact us using the information on our contact page.
Office 365 Home Page
Using your web browser, login to Office 365’s control panel at http://mail.office365.com. Login with your email address and existing password. Your Office 365 home page looks like this:
Open OWA settings
Click open the settings icon on the right side of the toolbar at the top right corner of your screen. The seettings icon looks like a cog.
Change password
Follow the 3 steps in the illustration below:
- Click open Office 365 settings
- Click on Password
- Change your password and click submit in the last screen
Remember, you need to know your old password to create your new password, so you may have to ask us to force a password change for you. Also, changing your password will mean you need to update settings on any devices that connect to your Office 365 account, including desktops, laptops, tablets, or mobile phones. Lastly, you may be asked to authenticate your password change by verifying your mobile phone number and inputting a short code which your server will text you, so your mobile phone should be available.