Fix Teams Guest Review Does Not Remove Inactive Guests for a Department Team

You set up guest review in Microsoft Teams to automatically remove inactive guests from your department team, but the guests stay. The review runs, yet nothing changes. This happens when the guest review policy is assigned to the wrong scope or when the team’s guest access settings block removal. This article explains why guest review fails for department teams and gives you step-by-step fixes to make it work.

Guest review is a Microsoft 365 feature that flags guests who have not signed in for a set number of days. It does not delete guests instantly. Instead, it creates a review task for the team owner. If you expect automatic removal, you will be disappointed. The review only removes guests when the owner approves the removal. If no owner acts, guests stay. This article shows you how to check your policy, assign it correctly, and approve pending reviews.

You will also learn how to verify that your department team has the correct guest access settings. Finally, you will see how to use PowerShell to remove inactive guests in bulk when the review process is not enough.

Why Guest Review Does Not Remove Inactive Guests from a Department Team

Guest review is a feature that flags guests who have not signed in for a specified number of days. The default period is 30 days. When the review runs, it creates a task for the team owner. The owner must open the task and approve the removal. If the owner ignores the task, the guest remains. This is the most common reason why guests are not removed.

Another reason is that the guest review policy is not applied to the team. In Teams, you assign policies at the group level. If your department team belongs to a group that does not have the guest review policy, the review never runs. You must check the policy assignment in the Teams admin center.

A third reason is that the team’s guest access settings block removal. If the setting “Allow owners to delete guests” is off, the review cannot remove the guest even after approval. This setting is in the team’s settings in the Teams client.

Finally, the guest might still be active. The review checks the guest’s last sign-in date across all Microsoft 365 services. If the guest signs in to SharePoint or Outlook, the date updates. So the guest may appear active even if they do not use Teams.

Steps to Fix Guest Review for a Department Team

Step 1: Verify the Guest Review Policy Is Enabled

1. Open the Teams admin center
   Go to Teams admin center > Guest access > Guest review.
2. Set the review period
   Choose the number of days, for example 30. The review will flag guests who have not signed in for that period.
3. Enable the policy
   Turn on the toggle for Enable guest review. Click Save.

Step 2: Assign the Guest Review Policy to the Correct Group

1. Go to team policies
   In the Teams admin center, go to Teams > Team policies.
2. Create or edit a policy
   Click Add to create a new policy or select an existing one. Name it clearly, for example “Guest review for department teams”.
3. Set the guest review period
   Under Guest review, select the same number of days you set in Step 1.
4. Assign the policy to a group
   Click Group policy assignment. Add the group that contains your department team. Click Save.

Step 3: Check the Team’s Guest Access Settings

1. Open the team in Teams
   Go to Teams in the left sidebar and find your department team.
2. Open team settings
   Click the three dots next to the team name, then select Manage team.
3. Go to Settings
   Click the Settings tab, then expand Members and guests.
4. Allow removal
   Make sure Allow owners to delete guests is turned on. If it is off, turn it on and click Save.

Step 4: Approve Pending Guest Review Tasks

1. Open the Teams client
   Sign in as the team owner. Look for a notification or a task in the Activity feed.
2. Find the guest review task
   The task is named “Guest review” and shows a list of inactive guests.
3. Approve or reject
   For each guest, click Remove to approve removal or Keep to keep the guest.
4. Confirm the action
   After you approve, the guest is removed from the team. The guest loses access to all team resources.

Step 5: Use PowerShell to Remove Inactive Guests in Bulk

1. Install the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module
   Open PowerShell as an administrator and run Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams.
2. Connect to Teams
   Run Connect-MicrosoftTeams and sign in with an account that has Teams admin permissions.
3. Get the team ID
   Run Get-Team -DisplayName “Your Department Team” and note the GroupId.
4. List guests and last sign-in dates
   Run Get-TeamUser -GroupId “GroupId” -Role Guest. For each guest, use Get-AzureADUser -ObjectId “UserPrincipalName” | Select-Object SignInActivity to see the last sign-in date.
5. Remove inactive guests
   For each guest with a last sign-in date older than your threshold, run Remove-TeamUser -GroupId “GroupId” -User “UserPrincipalName”.

If Teams Still Has Guest Review Problems

Guest review task never appears for the team owner

If the owner does not see any review task, the policy may not be applied. Check the group policy assignment in the Teams admin center. Make sure the group you selected contains the department team. Also, the review runs only for guests who have been in the team for at least the review period. New guests will not appear in the first review.

Guest is still active but I want to remove them

Guest review only flags guests who are inactive. If you want to remove an active guest, you must do it manually. In the team, go to Manage team > Members, find the guest, and click the X next to their name. Confirm the removal.

PowerShell shows an error about missing permissions

You need the Teams Administrator or Global Administrator role to run Remove-TeamUser. If you get an error, ask your IT admin to grant the role or run the command for you.

Teams Guest Review Policy vs Manual Removal: Key Differences

Item	Guest Review Policy	Manual Removal
Trigger	Runs automatically based on sign-in inactivity	Owner removes a guest at any time
Approval needed	Yes, owner must approve each guest	No approval needed
Time to effect	Depends on review period and owner action	Immediate
Bulk removal	No, one by one in the review task	Yes, with PowerShell
Best for	Keeping teams clean without manual work	Removing a specific guest quickly

Conclusion

You can now fix guest review for your department team by enabling the policy, assigning it to the correct group, and approving pending tasks. Check the team’s guest access settings to allow removal. If the review still does not work, use PowerShell to remove inactive guests in bulk. Try the manual removal option for a single guest. For a more advanced approach, schedule a PowerShell script to run weekly and remove guests who have not signed in for 30 days.