What are the default Guest permissions in Microsoft Teams?

What happens after a Guest is invited to Teams?

When a guest is invited to join a team, they will receive a welcome email message. This message includes some information about the team and what to expect now that they’re a member. To access the Team that the Guest was invited to, the Guest must accept the invitation by selecting Open Microsoft Teams in the email message. 

What can Guests do in Microsoft Teams by default?

The default Guest settings in Microsoft Teams permit the Guests to collaborate with members, Team owners, and other Guests in many ways:

• Create a new channel in the team
• Use private chats
• Post in the channel conversation thread
• Edit and delete their messages
• Share files from the channel
• Access files (through SharePoint)
• Attach files in channel posts
• Download files from private chats
• Use the VoIP calling feature

What Guests CANNOT do in Microsoft Teams by default?

Guests do not have the default permissions to:

• Search within shared files
• Share files from chats
• Add apps to the team
• Create meetings
• Access team members’ schedules
• Access OneDrive storage
• Invite other guests to Microsoft Teams
• Create new teams
• Delete channels
• Delete tabs
• See and join other public teams
• View the organization chart of the team
• Work with inline translations
• Become a team owner

What’s interesting is that the default Guest permissions in Microsoft Teams cannot supersede the permissions set for the members of your Team. For example, if your default member permissions restrict channel creation or updating, or message deletion, your Guests also won’t be able to perform these actions. 

Here is an example of the permissions for members of a Team.

Below you will see that the selections you made for the Team member permissions directly impact the default Guest permissions: 

How to change the default Guest permissions in Microsoft Teams?

Microsoft Teams Admin Centre allows you some control over what Guests can and cannot do in Microsoft Teams. 

To change the default settings, you will need to access the Microsoft Teams Admin Centre, find the users management menu, and click on Guest Access.

In there you will be able to toggle on and off various settings for each capability under Calling, Meetings, and Messaging.

Enabling Guest access in Microsoft Teams opens up many new collaboration opportunities, but also exposes your tenant and information within it to some threats. Subscribe to our newsletter below to receive the latest blogs about the considerations, risks, and risk mitigation techniques related to external sharing and enabling Guest access in your tenant.

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