How to add guest accounts to your Microsoft Teams in 5 easy steps

Want to invite your friends to collaborate on your projects, but not give them access to all your documents and data?

Guest accounts in Microsoft Teams allow you to quickly and easily add users as guests to your Teams workspace, without giving them full access to other files and information that they shouldn’t have access to. In this guide, we’ll show you how to add guest accounts in just 5 easy steps!

1) Invite Guests From Your Team Directory

One of the great features of Microsoft Teams is the ability to invite guests from your team directory. This makes it easy to collaborate with people outside of your organization. Here’s how to do it

1) Click on Add Guest in the left-hand column of your home page.

2) In the window that pops up, type the name or email address of someone you want to add as a guest and click Find.

3) Choose which group (e.g., Sales) you want this person added to and then click Invite. They will be added as a temporary member for 30 days, after which they can extend their membership if desired.

2) Invite Guest Users Manually

Adding a guest user to your Team is a great way to collaborate with someone outside of your organization. Plus, it’s easy to do! Here’s how:

1. In the Microsoft Teams app, click on Teams in the left sidebar.
2. Select the team you want to add a guest to.
3. Click More options (the three dots) and select Add member.
4. You’ll then be asked to type the email address of the person you want to invite or click on an email address that has been sent previously.
5. The person will receive an invitation via email and can accept by clicking on Accept Invitation at the bottom of their email message from Microsoft Teams.

3) Invite Visitors from Other Teams on the Same Office 365 Subscription

Adding a guest to your team allows you to collaborate with people outside of your organization who don’t have a full Office 365 subscription. Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to the team name and click More options.
2. Under Add members, type the email address of the person you want to invite and select Add.
3. If the person you invited doesn’t have a Microsoft account, they’ll get an email from Microsoft inviting them to create one. They can then use that email to sign in on their own device.
4. You can also let someone log into their existing account by clicking Sign-in as Guest instead of Invite Visitors from Other Teams on the Same Office 365 Subscription.
5. After typing in the invitation details, click Send Invitation and wait for a response from your guest.

4) Use an External Guest User Provider

If you have an Office 365 Business or Enterprise subscription, you can invite people from outside your organization to join teams as guest users. Guests can participate in team conversations, channels, and files, but they can’t access other content in your tenant, such as the Shared Mailbox. Here’s how to add guest users to your teams:

1. In the Microsoft Teams admin center, select Guest access.
2. Select Turn on guest access, and then select Save. 3. Next, click Add guest user provider.
3. Select the type of external guest account provider that your company uses, enter a username and password for this user (if needed), then click Create.
4. Now you’re ready to send invitations by email to guests who want to join a team as a guest user.

5) Removing Guest Users

As a team owner, you can remove a guest user from your team at any time. To do so, go to the team name and click More options > Manage team. Under the Guests tab, hover over the guest’s name and click the X that appears. Click Yes when prompted Are you sure? Click OK when prompted You’ll be removing this person from your team permanently. The guest will be removed immediately.