My Personal Vault has been locked.. on MAC AIR

Question

My Personal Vault has been locked.. on MAC AIR

Subba R Mullapudi 0

My Personal Vault has been locked quite for some time..it has got all my 10 yrs of Hardwork / Data / Photos .. stored.. I have chatted with. your support ..and they said .. to raise a TICKET with ONE DRIVE

EACH TIME I TRY TO UNLOCK THE PERSONAL VAULT . it throws an error

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4 answers

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Answer 1

Norah-L 10,660 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Dear Subba R Mullapudi,

I understand that your Personal Vault has been locked for some time, and it contains many years of important files, photos, and other data.

To help identify the cause, could you please tell me the exact error message or error code that appears when you try to unlock Personal Vault? A screenshot (with any personal information hidden) would also be helpful.

While gathering that information, you can also try the following and let me know the results:

Try unlocking Personal Vault from a different device, such as your phone using the OneDrive mobile app.
Sign in to OneDrive on the web and test in a different, fully updated browser (Microsoft Edge, Chrome, or Firefox).
Try an InPrivate/Incognito window to rule out browser cache or extension issues.

I look forward to your response so we could look into it further. Thank you so much for your patience!

Subba R Mullapudi 0 Reputation points

2026-08-25T01:34:19.8033333+00:00

These are the series of events ( irrespective of .. Mobile app / Different browser)

Stage 1: I could access the one drive ( same for all - Mobile app / Fire fox / Safari _)

Step 2 : I click on the Files . and Personal Vault link will show up

Stage 3 : When I try to UNLOCK the PERSONAL VAULT .. it says try login again

Stage 4 : When I click on it it opens another window - VERIFY YOUR IDENTITY

Stage 5 : That window has pre- populated box with my - [REMOVED PII]@gmail.com .. email id

Stage 6 : When I click on it .. the error message throws up in RED

That doesn't match the alternate email associated with your account. The correct email starts with [REMOVED].
Norah-L 10,660 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-26T04:03:28.6566667+00:00
PII caution: Please note that this is a public forum for users. I have redacted some private information from your screenshot to protect for your privacy and security.

Subba R Mullapudi,

Thank you for providing the screenshot and the detailed steps.

Based on the error shown, this does not appear to be a problem with the Personal Vault files themselves. Instead, the identity verification step is failing before Personal Vault can be unlocked.

The message indicates that Microsoft is expecting a different recovery/alternate email address than the one being entered.

As a check:

Sign in to your Microsoft account at account.microsoft.com and confirm that you can access the account normally.

Go to Security > Advanced security options and review the email addresses listed as your security or recovery methods.

Verify whether the email hint shown in the Personal Vault verification window matches one of the security or recovery methods on your account and whether you still have access to that address.

If the hinted email address is not listed on your account, or if you no longer have access to it, please let me know. That would help explain why the identity verification step is failing before Personal Vault can be unlocked.

Please let me know how it goes!
Subba R Mullapudi 0 Reputation points

2026-08-28T00:12:19.0366667+00:00

Norah - are you part of MICROSOFT ? .. if not ..stay out of this discussion .. I want some body from MICROSOFT to look into it
Norah-L 10,660 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-30T08:18:50.66+00:00

Subba R Mullapudi,

I’ll step back and allow other community members to share additional solutions. Or you can also contact Microsoft Support by following the steps in my comment under your follow-up answer. Since this is a user-to-user forum, Moderators, contributors including external Microsoft employees cannot directly intervene in Microsoft product features or access back-end systems. Our role is limited to providing technical guidance on reported issues, requests, or ideas.

Thank you for your patience and your understanding!

Answer 2

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Answer 3

Subba R Mullapudi 0

As a check: As you had asked ( pls look at the screenshots) >. NO RESULT

Sign in to your Microsoft account at account.microsoft.com and confirm that you can access the account normally.

User's image

Go to Security > Advanced security options and review the email addresses listed as your security or recovery methods.

User's image

Verify whether the email hint shown in the Personal Vault verification window matches one of the security or recovery methods on your account and whether you still have access to that address.

It is one and the same ... no change

In summary - it is not working either .. so pls fix the issue

Norah-L 10,660 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-26T07:39:41.4633333+00:00
Since this is a public forum, I've removed your personally identifiable information (PII) to help protect your privacy and security. I have also sent the original image to you via private message. If you need to share additional screenshots, please use the Message button to avoid exposing any personal information publicly.

Subba R Mullapudi,

Thank you for checking and sharing the screenshots.

Based on the results, it appears:

You can sign in to your Microsoft account normally.

The email address listed as a security/recovery method matches the email hint shown during Personal Vault verification.

The same behavior occurs across different browsers and devices.

Since the recovery email appears to be correct, but Personal Vault still reports that the email does not match the alternate email associated with the account, this no longer looks like a browser, device, or account settings issue.

I recommend contacting Microsoft Support and ask the support agent to investigate the account's Personal Vault identity verification records, as the current evidence suggests the account is being presented with a verification method that is not being accepted correctly. As this is a user-to-user forum, we cannot access Microsoft's account verification systems or make changes to the backend records associated with Personal Vault.

Here's how to reach out to the Support Team (live chat):

Go to: https://support.microsoft.com/home/contact

In the search box, enter a short description of your issue. Select "Get Help"

Scroll down and select Sign in to contact support (please sign in using a personal Microsoft account). Then follow the on-screen prompts to reach Support Team.

Tip: Support chat availability may vary by country/region, product, and support hours. If you can't get in touch with a chat agent right away, trying again later or at a different time may help.

Hopefully this issue will be sorted out soon. Thank you so much for your patience!

Best regards.

Answer 4

Subba R Mullapudi 0

Nothing worked - is there any body from MICROSOFT . to solve my issue

Norah-L 10,660 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-08-30T08:17:01.1+00:00

Subba R Mullapudi,

Please contact the Support team by following the steps provided in the comment under your follow-up answer. Since this is a user-to-user forum, community members here are users like you and cannot access your account or investigate server-side issues.
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My Personal Vault has been locked.. on MAC AIR

4 answers

These are the series of events ( irrespective of .. Mobile app / Different browser)

Your answer