Forum Discussion
Teams users cannot sign in if using personal account
Anyone have any luck with this? Know of a work around? Anything know if this is a known issue and if a fix is on the way?
Once again Microsoft Support has lived up to my expectations so I'm reaching out here.
Create a meeting invite link and share with a bunch of people. When clicking on the link the user is presented with options to download Teams, use the web or open with the Teams App. This applies to the Teams App link.
Users with business accounts, and users who join as guest work without issue. On the join meeting window there's a link to sign in for a better experience. Clicking this link show a signing in page either indefinitely or for a while and reverts back to the join meeting window.
It appears that signing in to a Teams meeting with a personal account (Outlook.com, Gmail) simply is not supported. If this is the case I would expect a message to say this but I suspect this is a bug in Teams.
13 Replies
Hi, this isn't a bug in your meeting link signing in with a personal Microsoft account is supported now, and Teams even lets you join a work/school meeting as your signed-in personal account rather than as a guest.
The silent sign-in loop is usually the desktop client: many users hit "Personal accounts aren't supported yet in Teams (preview)" on Windows 10 / un-updated Windows 11, and the fix is to uninstall Teams and reinstall the latest New Teams build from the official download page (it needs Windows 10 19041+).
Also check on your side: for external personal accounts to sign in to your meeting, the tenant setting for chats and meetings with external Teams users not managed by an organization must be enabled — otherwise guest join is the only path.
Teams sign-known issues: https://mstack360.com/teams-cannot-sign-in-fix/
If your meeting is hosted via org account, and you want your attendees with personal account to be able to log in, on the tenant level, you need to make sure this following settings is turned on
See detailed instructions in this link, under this heading:
Manage chats and meetings with external Teams users not managed by an organization
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/trusted-organizations-external-meetings-chat?tabs=organization-settings#manage-chats-and-meetings-with-external-teams-users-not-managed-by-an-organization
Confusing account types and sign-in flows can be for end users, especially when switching between personal and work accounts in Microsoft Teams. Clearer guidance and a more consistent authentication experience would definitely reduce frustration.
This is for a new Windows 11 installation I did yesterday and may be of some help for that message of not being able to log into Teams with a personal email, no matter what I tried. Since Skype was not installed, I downloaded a Skype installation package from a third party which still had it, and when Skype was started, it gave me the message that Skype was discontinued, and there was a button to use Teams instead which I pressed. Immediately my entire Skype account was automatically transferred into MS Teams without even having to log in to Skype. The problem most likely arises from my having just a simple username rather than an email or number (mobile) for Skype because I started using Skype way back when it came out from Germany, even before eBay and then Microsoft owned it.
This is for a new Windows 11 installation I did yesterday and may be of some help for that message of not being able to log into Teams with a personal email, no matter what I tried. Since Skype was not installed, I downloaded a Skype installation package from a third party which still had it, and when Skype was started, it gave me the message that Skype was discontinued, and there was a button to use Teams instead which I pressed. Immediately my entire Skype account was automatically transferred into MS Teams without even having to log in to Skype. The problem likely arises from my having just a simple user name rather than email or mobile number which is how I originally registered when Skype came out from Germany, even before eBay owned it.
Not sure if the blog is still relevant: Introducing new features in Microsoft Teams to connect you with friends... But I believe you could test by using the mobile app instead. It could be so, that Microsoft private accounts (outlook.com / hotmail.com / etc..) are not yet expected to be working.
