Unable to switch directories in Azure AD

Marilee Turscak
2 min readFeb 16, 2022

Have you tried to sign into an Azure tenant and selected the correct directory, only to be redirected to an entirely different directory from the one you chose? If you are having trouble switching directories in Azure Active Directory, here are the steps to resolve this issue.

Problem

When attempting to switch directories or sign into a particular directory, Azure AD automatically signs you into your default or startup directory. If your account has been removed from the default directory, this can result in a chicken and egg scenario where your account keeps trying to sign into a directory where you no longer have access, but you can’t select a different default because you can’t sign in.

Thankfully there is an easy solution to this problem.

Resolution

  1. Sign in using the direct link for the tenant rather than portal.azure.com.

Here are two examples of direct links for the Azure Portal:

https://portal.azure.com/yourtenantname.onmicrosoft.com
(with tenant name)

https://portal.azure.com/<tenant id>
(with tenant ID)

2. Once you have signed in to the correct tenant, you can select “change” and save a directory in the “Select a directory” section, or select the star to favorite one of the directories on that list.

After you have selected a startup directory, you will no longer be redirected to the previous default tenant. Otherwise, if you do not select a favorite, your startup directory will be the one that you visited last.

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