Fix Teams Mobile Notifications Do Not Arrive after Upgrading to New Teams

After you upgrade to the new Teams app on your desktop, you may notice that Teams mobile notifications stop arriving on your phone. This happens because the new Teams app uses a different notification service and your mobile device still holds an old connection token. In this article, you will learn why the upgrade breaks mobile notifications and how to fix it in under 10 minutes.

Why New Teams Breaks Mobile Push Notifications

The new Teams desktop app, released in 2023, replaced the classic Teams client. It uses a new push notification service that works with Apple Push Notification Service and Firebase Cloud Messaging. When you sign in to the new Teams app on your desktop, it registers a new device token for your account. However, the mobile Teams app may still hold the old token from the classic Teams era. This mismatch prevents the notification service from delivering messages to your phone.

Another common cause is that the new Teams app resets your notification preferences. After the upgrade, the desktop app may disable mobile push notifications by default. This setting is stored per user in the Teams admin center. If an administrator has set a policy that blocks mobile notifications, the upgrade will not re-enable it.

Notification Delivery Path for Teams Mobile

When someone sends you a chat message, the Teams server sends a push notification to your registered device token. The token is tied to the app version and the platform. After the new Teams upgrade, the server may try to send the notification to the token that was created by the classic Teams app. If that token is stale, the push service silently drops the notification. The message still appears when you open the app, but you do not get an alert.

Steps to Diagnose and Fix Mobile Notifications in New Teams

Follow these steps in order. Each step addresses a different part of the notification chain.

1. Check the Teams desktop notification settings
   Open the new Teams app on your desktop. Click your profile picture at the top right, then select Settings. In the Settings window, go to Notifications. Scroll down to the Mobile notifications section. Verify that the toggle for Push notifications is turned on. If it is off, turn it on and then restart the Teams desktop app.
2. Update the Teams mobile app to the latest version
   On your iPhone or Android phone, go to the App Store or Google Play Store. Search for Microsoft Teams. If an update is available, tap Update. The new Teams mobile app version 1416 or later includes fixes for notification delivery after the desktop upgrade. After updating, open Teams and sign in again.
3. Sign out and sign back in on the mobile app
   Open the Teams mobile app. Tap your profile picture, then tap Settings. Scroll down and tap Sign out. Confirm that you want to sign out. Then sign back in with the same work or school account. This step forces the mobile app to request a new device token from the push service.
4. Verify notification permissions in the phone operating system
   On iPhone, go to Settings > Notifications > Microsoft Teams. Turn on Allow Notifications. On Android, go to Settings > Apps > Microsoft Teams > Notifications. Enable all notification categories. Also, on Android, go to Settings > Apps > Microsoft Teams > Battery and select Unrestricted. This prevents the phone from killing the Teams background service that receives push messages.
5. Check notification settings inside the mobile app
   Open the Teams mobile app. Tap your profile picture, then tap Notifications. Make sure that Calls, Chat messages, and Mentions are all set to Allow. If any of these are set to Disable, change them to Allow. Also, check the Quiet hours setting. If you are currently within the quiet hours window, notifications will be silenced.
6. Test with a direct message
   After completing steps 1 through 5, ask a colleague to send you a direct chat message. Wait 30 seconds. If you receive a notification, the fix worked. If not, proceed to the next step.
7. Clear the Teams mobile app cache
   On Android, go to Settings > Apps > Microsoft Teams > Storage > Clear Cache. Do not clear data because that signs you out. On iPhone, the only way to clear cache is to delete and reinstall the app. Deleting the app will sign you out, so you will need to sign in again after reinstalling.

If Notifications Still Do Not Arrive

If you completed all steps and notifications still fail, the problem may be on the server side. An administrator may have set a Teams policy that disables mobile notifications. Check the Teams admin center for the user’s policy assignment.

1. Open the Teams admin center
   Go to admin.teams.microsoft.com. Sign in with an administrator account.
2. Review the messaging policy
   Go to Messaging policies. Select the policy that is assigned to the user. Verify that the option Push notifications is set to Enabled. If it is set to Disabled, change it to Enabled and save the policy.
3. Check the meeting policy
   Go to Meetings > Meeting policies. Select the relevant policy. Verify that the option Allow push notifications for meeting messages is Enabled. This setting controls notifications for meeting chat messages.

If Teams Mobile Notifications Still Fail After Reinstalling the App

Teams shows notifications only when the app is open

This symptom means that the push service is not reaching your device. The most common cause is battery optimization on Android. Go to Settings > Apps > Microsoft Teams > Battery and select Unrestricted. On iPhone, check that Background App Refresh is enabled. Go to Settings > General > Background App Refresh and turn it on for Microsoft Teams.

Notifications arrive on the desktop but not on the phone

This indicates that the mobile app is not registered with the push service. Sign out and sign back in on the mobile app. If that does not help, uninstall the app and reinstall it. After reinstalling, sign in and grant all notification permissions.

Notifications are delayed by several minutes

Delayed notifications are often caused by the phone’s power-saving mode. On Android, go to Settings > Battery > Power saving and exclude Teams. On iPhone, check that Low Power Mode is off. Also, verify that the Teams mobile app is not set to a data saver mode that limits background data.

New Teams Desktop vs Classic Teams: Notification Behavior Compared

Item	New Teams Desktop	Classic Teams Desktop
Push service	New token-based service using APNs and FCM	Legacy service with older token format
Mobile notification default	Disabled after upgrade until re-enabled	Enabled by default
Admin policy control	Messaging policy and meeting policy both apply	Only messaging policy applied
Device token refresh	Requires sign-out or reinstall after upgrade	Token stayed valid across updates
Battery optimization impact	High impact on Android	Moderate impact

The table shows that the main difference is the new token-based service and the need to refresh the token after the upgrade. The fix is to sign out and sign back in on the mobile app, and to re-enable notifications in the desktop settings.

You can now restore mobile notifications by updating the mobile app, signing out and back in, and verifying the notification settings on both the desktop and the phone. If the problem persists, check the Teams admin center for policy settings that block push notifications. As a final tip, use the Teams app on your phone to test notifications with a colleague after every change. This confirms that the fix worked before you move on.