SharePoint Online (365) no longer sending share notifications to M365 Groups

[BrianRMI]

My org uses M365 and I just found out that SharePoint Online is no longer sending notifications to content shared to M365 Groups, which is a critical problem for our org.

Example: If a user navigates to a document in SharePoint Online (or in the doc library they are syncing to File Explorer), clicks "Share", types in the M365 Group they'd like to share the document to (yes, the group auto-populates), types in their message, and clicks "Send", it seems like all is well but the members of the M365 group never receive the email notification that the file was shared with them. This worked up to Dec 27, 2022 but not since.

Does anyone have any ideas or guidance for troubleshooting this?

Thanks! 

[#2]

We have this problem too.

You probably like us, have protection, so that users/groups could receive only organization emails.
Until ~2023, when user shared something, email to another user was sent from user who was sharing.
But now, email is being sent from sharepoint, and because of it, email protection does not allow those emails to go to users/groups.
If you set rule which allows emails from everyone, not just organization, then share notification emails will be delivered to recipients without a problem. But this is not a solution.

Solution would be to somehow add sharepoint email to safe sender list, for organization groups/users. But I was unable to find out how to do this. "Microsoft Exchange" does not allow it, or maybe it does?

[#3 · Accepted solution]

@BrianRMI 

We had this problem too.

This is how you solve it:

First we need to allow emails from people outside of the organization.

In the admin center go to Teams & groups -> Active Teams & groups and find your M365 Group.

Click on it, then under "Settings" check "Let people outside the organization email this team".

We don't want people outside of the organization to email our groups so we need to restrict it later. First we need to add Sharepoint as a mail contact (because everything you share in OneDrive will be shared from "email address removed for privacy reasons" now and not the user anymore).

In the Exchange admin center go to recipients -> contacts and click on "Add a mail contact". Fill out the information and make sure to put email address removed for privacy reasons as the external email address.

In Exchange, find your group and edit the delivery management. Set it to "Only senders in the following list". Then add your new Sharepoint contact. You should be able to find it by searching for either the email or the name you gave it.

The problem should be solved. 

Keep in mind, that you also have to add people to the delivery management list who should be allowed to send emails to the group. 

[#4]

Something changed, now share notifications once again coming from user email, not from sharepointonline.

[#5]

@Edmundas 

You're right, they just changed it back to how it was before. 

[#6]

Thank you for the reply! It was really nice to see one pop up so quickly and with good thoughts.

[#7]

This post was awesome, thank you! I did what you suggested while Microsoft was dealing with their mess, and it solved my immediate need. I so appreciate it!