Accounts in MSAL Browser

2025-08-14

This is the platform-specific Accounts documentation for the @azure/msal-browser library, which provides the following APIs to access cached accounts:

getAllAccounts(): returns all the accounts currently in the cache. Supports an optional filter to return a specific set of accounts. An application must choose an account to acquire tokens silently.
getAccount(): returns the first cached account that matches the filter passed in. The order in which accounts are read from the cache is arbitrary and there is no guarantee that the first account in the filtered list will be the same for any two calls of getAccount. As explained below, increasing the number of filter attributes will provide more exact matches.

Account Filter Object

The AccountFilter type documentation lists the properties that can be used and combined to filter accounts.

Note: A single account filter attribute is usually not guaranteed to uniquely identify a cached account object. Adding a combination of attributes that don't repeat together, such as homeAccountId + localAccountId, can help refine the search.

Note: realm is tenantId in the cache.

The following getAccountBy APIs are marked for deprecation and will be removed in a future version of MSAL. Please migrate to getAccount():

getAccountByHomeId(): receives a homeAccountId string and returns the matching account from the cache.
getAccountByLocalId(): receives a localAccountId string and returns the matching account from the cache.
getAccountByUsername(): receives a username string and returns the matching account from the cache.

The following is a usage examples that covers these APIs:


let homeAccountId = null; // Initialize global accountId (can also be localAccountId or username) used for account lookup later, ideally stored in app state

// This callback is passed into `acquireTokenPopup` and `acquireTokenRedirect` to handle the interactive auth response
function handleResponse(resp) {
    if (resp !== null) {
        homeAccountId = resp.account.homeAccountId; // alternatively: resp.account.homeAccountId or resp.account.username
    } else {
        const currentAccounts = myMSALObj.getAllAccounts();
        if (currentAccounts.length < 1) { // No cached accounts
            return;
        } else if (currentAccounts.length > 1) { // Multiple account scenario
            // Add account selection code here
            homeAccountId = ...
        } else if (currentAccounts.length === 1) {
            homeAccountId = currentAccounts[0].homeAccountId; // Single account scenario
        }
    }
}

Now, account properties such as: homeAccountId, localAccountId, and username can be used to look up the cached account before acquiring a token silently:

// This method attempts silent token acquisition and falls back on acquireTokenPopup
async function getTokenPopup(request, homeAccountId) {
    // In this case, accounts are filtered by homeAccountId, but more attributes can be added to refine the search and increase the precision of the account filter
    const accountFilter = {
        homeAccountId: homeAccountId,
    };
    request.account = myMSALObj.getAccount(accountFilter);
    return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenSilent(request).catch(async (error) => {
        // Handle error
        return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenPopup(request);
    });
}

As of @azure/msal-browser@3.2.0, all login hint values can be used to search for and filter accounts. In order to filter by login hint, MSAL will compare the loginHint value in the AccountFilter object against the following account attributes (in order of precedence) to search for matches:

login_hint ID token claim
username account property
upn ID token claim

Note: All attributes above can be passed into the account filter as the loginHint property. The account filter will also accept the username attribute as username, and will yield a more performant search.

Using `login_hint` claim

const accountFilter = {
    loginHint: previouslyObtainedIdTokenClaims.login_hint;
};
request.account = myMSALObj.getAccount(accountFilter);
return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenSilent(request).catch(async (error) => {
    // Handle error
    return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenPopup(request);
});

Using `username``

Note: The username value can included in the AccountFilter object as either username or loginHint. This is because the username claim is one of the 3 values (along with the login_hint and upn ID token claims) that the token service accepts as login hint. If your application is certain that the value in question is a username, setting it as the AccountFilter.username property will yield better search performance. Being able to set a username value as loginHint is useful if your application utilizes a login hint and does not keep context on whether that value came from a username, login_hint, or upn claim.

Passing username as loginHint

const accountUsername = userProfile.username;
const accountFilter = {
    loginHint: accountUsername;
};
request.account = myMSALObj.getAccount(accountFilter);
return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenSilent(request).catch(async (error) => {
    // Handle error
    return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenPopup(request);
});

Passing username as username

const accountUsername = userProfile.username;
const accountFilter = {
    username: accountUsername;
};
request.account = myMSALObj.getAccount(accountFilter);
return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenSilent(request).catch(async (error) => {
    // Handle error
    return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenPopup(request);
});

Using `upn` claim

const accountFilter = {
    loginHint: previouslyObtainedIdTokenClaims.upn;
};
request.account = myMSALObj.getAccount(accountFilter);
return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenSilent(request).catch(async (error) => {
    // Handle error
    return await myMSALObj.acquireTokenPopup(request);
});

Active Account APIs

The @azure/msal-browser library also provides 2 convenient APIs to help you keep track of which account is currently "active" and should be used for token requests.

getActiveAccount(): Returns the current active account
setActiveAccount(): Receives an account object and sets it as the active account

Deciding which account to use to acquire tokens is app dependent, however, once you've determined which account you wish to use, simply call the setActiveAccount() API with the chosen account object. Any acquireToken, login or ssoSilent calls will now use the active account by default if a different account is not specified in the individual request. To clear the currently active account you can call setActiveAccount(null).

function login() {
    return myMsalObj.loginPopup().then((response) => {
        // After a successful login set the active account to be the user that just logged in
        myMsalObj.setActiveAccount(response.account);
    });
}

function getAccessToken() {
    // Providing an account in the token request is not required if there is an active account set
    return myMsalObj.acquireTokenSilent({ scopes: ["User.Read"] });
}

Note: As of version 2.16.0 the active account is stored in the cache location configured on your PublicClientApplication instance. If you are using a previous version the active account is stored in-memory and thus must be reset on every page load.

Notes

The current msal-browser default sample has a working single account scenario.
If you have a multiple accounts scenario, please modify the sample (in handleResponse()) to list all cached accounts and choose a specific account.
If an application wants to retrieve an account based on the username, it needs to save the username (from the response of a login API for a specific user) prior to using getAccountByUsername() API.
getAllAccounts() will return multiple accounts if you have made several interactive token requests and the user has selected different accounts in two or more of those interactions. You may need to pass prompt: "select_account" or prompt: "login" to the interactive acquireToken or login API in order for Microsoft Entra ID to display the account selection screen after the first interaction.
The account APIs return local account state and do not necessarily reflect server state. They return accounts that have previously signed into this app using MSAL.js and the server session may or may not still be active.
Two apps hosted on different domains do not share account state due to browser storage being segemented by domain.
getAllAccounts() is not ordered and is not guaranteed to be in the same order across multiple calls
Each successful call to an acquireToken or login API will return exactly one account

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Accounts in MSAL Browser

Account Filter Object

Filtering by login hint

Using login_hint claim