Office365 OneDrive Share - Link cant be sent to external email address

[Shane Kelm]

Within Office365 > OneDrive.

On Mac and windows (both chrome), users are starting to notice that when an external contact is entered which has been used many times before without issue, is now getting the error "The link can't be sent because at least one recipient isnt valid...unable to send

or The external email address has similar characters (first name) as an internal address, only the internal address shows up (pic2)

Copy link has no issues

is there a way to clear pr delete the address cache?

This issue also occurs in IE, firefox and Edge

thanks

Shane 

[#2]

I am having the same issue. Our OneDrive admin console is set to allow anonymous sharing of URL's

Yet, anytime I enter a person outside of our organization, the error is:

'The link can't be shared because at least one recipient isn't valid'

What is causing this?

[#3]

I am having the identical issue when attempting to share a OneDrive folder to a specific external email address. All permissions are properly setup to permit external sharing with users who accept the invitation and are able to authenticate their email on the MS side.

[#4]

I'm having the same issue - External sharing is set to "Most permissive" in the OneDrive admin center but users can only specify internal email addresses when sharing files and folders.  Attempting to share with an external user produces "The link can't be sent because at least one recipient isn't valid".

Looking at existing Microsoft documentation such as this: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Manage-sharing-in-OneDrive-and-SharePoint-ee8b91c5-05ec-44c... seems to imply that this is not expected behavior.

[#5]

Adding @Stephen Rice...

[#6]

My problem was solved after troubleshooting several items with MS support. The cause of the issue in my case was that the external email address that I was trying to share to was listed as my secondary email address for account recovery. Changing my secondary email address solved the issue for me. If that doesn't work for you, the problem may still be that the email you are trying to share to is registered in your instance of onedrive/sharepoint and you may end up having to take steps to remove it manually through powershell (which was what I almost had to do). Unfortunately I do not have the instructions on fixing via powershell, but you could try googling it as I think they are available somewhere. Otherwise call the support team.

Best,

MVR

[#7]

Hi all,

Thanks for flagging me, this is definitely unexpected. A few thoughts:

1) It looks like the e-mail address is unresolved. If you click out of the text box, does it auto resolve to the e-mail address? 

2) If you look at the user in the directory who was resolved in the second screenshot, is the e-mail address you're sharing with linked in any way? 

If none of the above, is someone able to get a Fiddler trace and send it to me? We haven't been able to repro this on our end. Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#8]

We are now using OneDrive for Business. One of our external course writers has both a gmail and a hotmail address. We first sent him a link to the folders in our OneDrive he needed access to. But his personal OneDrive 365 uses the hotmail address. We want to send the link to our OneDrive folders to his hotmail address, so he can set it up so that he can sync to our OneDrive off of his windows explorer folders. But when I try sending a sharing link to his hotmail address I get the "link can't be shared" error message. And OneDrive just keeps bringing up as an option the gmail address. 

How can I totally delete his gmail address from our OneDrive directory/memory so I can then create and send him a sharable link to his hotmail address?

Olgy Gary, Lead Instructional Designer

ORU

[#9]

See if you can remove the external user from the office 365 admin center. They will be marked with #EXT# in the username.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3026385/how-to-remove-users-from-sharepoint-online

Additional notes

• At the Office 365 admin center level, user management lets an administrator manage users (create, delete, license, and assign delegated admins) in the Azure Active Directory domain structure. The portal also allows for the management of external users for site collections, including personal sites.

[#10]

I think this is what ended up being the source of my issue.  I had one particular non-domain email address that I was testing this with, and without realizing it, that address was setup as my secondary/recovery address.  I just tested this using someone else's personal email address and I was able to share the file successfully.

[#11]

@Olgy Gary, @Robert Woods is correct. Check the O365 Admin Portal and look for a user with that e-mail address. If the user's e-mail is srice@microsoft.com, it should look something like srice_microsoft_com#EXT#@contoso.com. What is happening is that when you share, by default we pick a user who matches in your company's directory. Once removed, this should work properly. Thanks!

Stephen Rice

OneDrive Program Manager II

[#12]

Robert, your suggestion worked! I forwarded your comment to our system administrator and he was able to delete the gmail address this user has. Soon after I was able to send him a link to the individual folders within our department OneDrive he needed to access. Thank you for taking the time to provide a solution for us. It worked. 

---

@Robert Woods wrote:

See if you can remove the external user from the office 365 admin center. They will be marked with #EXT# in the username.

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3026385/how-to-remove-users-from-sharepoint-online

Additional notes

• At the Office 365 admin center level, user management lets an administrator manage users (create, delete, license, and assign delegated admins) in the Azure Active Directory domain structure. The portal also allows for the management of external users for site collections, including personal sites.

---

[#13]

Thanks, Stephen, for confirming what Robert shared as the correct solution. Earlier today I sent Robert's comment to our system admin. After he deleted the user's gmail address from the system, I was able to resend links to individual folders in our department's OneDrive using the hotmail address. 

[#14]

I am having this same issue but with a little bit of a twist. My users have a 365 office business account with an on prem exchange account(non 365). The Email that they use is the same user name for each account. When I try to share a OneNote or OneDrive doc I get the error "The link can't be sent because at least one recipient isn't valid. If I send to an address that is not in or organization it will work fine. It is only when I try to send to someone with in our same domain and has a office 365 business account that I get the error. If I send to a user that does not have a 365 account but has the same domain name it works fine.

Example

bob@me.com - they have a office 365 business account and I get the error

Sue@me.com - they do not have a office 365 business account they get the invite and stated that they are outside of my organization but it works.

dan@gmail.com They are not in my user list, dont know if they do not have a office 365 account they get the invite and stated that they are outside of my organization but it works.

I looked and dont see any accounts other than guest accounts with the #ect#. Non of them have the @me.com  domain name.

Any ideas.

[#15]

Thank you, your post helped me to solve my error.

[#16]

End the email address with a semicolon.  @Brian Crowther 

[#17]

@TerryMixers I wish I had gone to the last (your) comment first.  All the rest was irrelevant; putting a semicolon after the name solved the problem.  Thanks!  (Who would have guessed?!)

[#18]

@Peter Lundstedt I had the same issue, but then realized I need to go into each Shared Library and set the permission to allow anyone with a link. Hope that helps.

[#19]

@Matt Raketti That seems to be the problem for me too on 5/26/2020.  Amazing they haven't addressed this yet.  If I specify a different external email address then it works just fine.  It just doesn't allow you to use an address that is someone's recovery email.  Worst part is you won't know that's the case.  I don't know of any way to search for recovery email accounts to validate that.

[#20]

@Armand Salmon