Microsoft Support - Owner, member and guest capabilities
Every member in Teams has a role, and each one has different permissions.
- Owners
Team owners manage certain settings for the team. They add and remove members, add guests, change team settings, and handle administrative tasks. There can be multiple owners in a team.
- Members
Members are the people in the team. They talk with other team members in conversations. They can view and usually upload and change files. They also do the usual sorts of collaboration that the team owners have permitted. - Guests
Guests are people from outside of your organization that a team owner invites, such as partners or consultants to join the team. Guests have fewer capabilities than team members or team owners, but there's still a lot they can do.
The following table shows the capabilities available for each role:
Capability |
Owner |
Member |
Guest |
Create a channel |
X |
X |
X |
Participate in a private chat |
X |
X |
X |
Participate in a channel conversation |
X |
X |
X |
Share a channel file |
X |
X |
X |
Share a chat file |
X |
X |
|
Add apps (such as tabs, bots, or connectors) |
X |
X |
|
Can be invited via any work or school account for Microsoft 365 |
|
|
X |
Delete or edit posted messages |
X |
X |
X |
Discover and join public teams |
X |
X |
|
View org chart |
X |
X |
|
Add or remove members and guests |
X |
|
|
Set team permissions for channels, tabs, and connectors |
X |
|
|
Change the team picture |
X |
|
|
Add guests to a team |
X |
|
|
Auto-show channels for the whole team |
X |
|
|
Control @[team name] mentions |
X |
|
|
Allow @channel or @[channel name] mentions |
X |
|
|
Allow usage of emoji, GIFs, and memes |
X |
|
|
Compare external and guest access
The following tables show the differences between using external access (federation) and guests. In both cases, people outside your organization are identified to your users as being external.
Things your users can do
Users can |
External access users |
Guests |
Chat with someone in another organization |
Yes |
Yes |
Call someone in another organization |
Yes |
Yes |
See if someone from another organization is available for call or chat |
Yes |
Yes1 |
Search for people in other organizations |
Yes2 |
No |
Share files |
No |
Yes |
See the out-of-office message of someone in another organization |
No |
Yes |
Block someone in another organization |
No |
Yes |
Use @mentions |
Yes3 |
Yes |
Things people outside your organization can do
People outside your organization can |
External access users |
Guests |
Access Teams resources |
No |
Yes |
Be added to a group chat |
Yes |
Yes |
Be invited to a meeting |
Yes |
Yes |
Make private calls |
Yes |
Yes5 |
View the phone number for dial-in meeting participants |
No4 |
Yes |
Use IP video |
Yes |
Yes5 |
Use screen sharing |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Use meet now |
No |
Yes5 |
Edit sent messages |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Delete sent messages |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Use Giphy in conversation |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Use memes in conversation |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Use stickers in conversation |
Yes3 |
Yes5 |
Presence is displayed |
Yes |
Yes |
Use @mentions |
Yes3 |
Yes |
1 Provided that the user has been added as a guest and is signed in with the guest account.
2 Only by email or Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) address.
3 Supported for 1:1 chat for Teams Only to Teams Only users from two different organizations.
4 By default, external participants can't see the phone numbers of dialed-in participants. If you want to maintain the privacy of these phone numbers, select Tones for Entry/exit announcement type (this prevents the numbers from being read out by Teams). To learn more, read Turn on or off entry and exit announcements for meetings in Microsoft Teams.
5 Allowed by default, but can be turned off by the Teams admin
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