Fix Teams Guest Review Does Not Remove Inactive Guests after a Microsoft 365 Group Change

Guest review in Teams is supposed to remove inactive guests from your Microsoft 365 groups automatically. But after you change a group’s settings, the guest review may stop working and leave those guests in place. This happens when the group’s expiration policy or the guest review settings become misaligned. This article shows you how to fix the guest review so it removes inactive guests again after a Microsoft 365 group change.

You will learn the exact steps to check your group’s expiration policy, re-enable guest review, and manually remove guests if needed. You will also see why changing a group can break the review process and how to avoid that in the future.

Why Guest Review Stops After a Microsoft 365 Group Change

Guest review in Teams is tied to the Microsoft 365 group that backs each team. The review process checks each guest’s last activity date against a threshold you set. When the group’s expiration policy changes, for example when you extend the group’s lifetime or move it to a different policy, the guest review can lose its trigger. The review may stop running entirely or may run but fail to remove guests that appear inactive.

Another common cause is that the group change resets the guest review settings to their default values. The default is often to never remove guests, which effectively disables the review. If you changed the group’s membership type or converted a team to a shared channel, the underlying group may no longer match the settings in your guest review policy.

What Happens When Guest Review Fails

When guest review stops working, inactive guests stay in the group. They still appear in Teams, can access files, and may receive meeting invites. This can become a security risk because former collaborators keep access to your organization’s data. The review process also stops sending the notification emails that warn guests about upcoming removal.

Steps to Fix Guest Review After a Group Change

Follow these steps in order. Each step builds on the previous one, so do not skip ahead.

1. Check the group’s expiration policy
   Open the Microsoft 365 admin center and go to Groups > Expiration. Look for the policy that applies to your group. Confirm that the expiration period is set to a value you expect, such as 180 days. If the policy is set to No expiration, guest review will never trigger. Change it to a specific number of days and save.
2. Verify guest review is enabled for the team
   Go to the Teams admin center and select Teams > Guest policies. Find the policy that applies to your team. Check that the Guest review toggle is set to On. If it is off, turn it on and save the policy. Wait at least 30 minutes for the change to propagate.
3. Confirm the guest review threshold
   In the same guest policy, look for the Guest review period setting. This is the number of days a guest can be inactive before they are removed. The default is 30 days. If you recently changed the group, the threshold may have been reset. Set it to your preferred value, such as 60 days, and save.
4. Trigger a manual guest review
   If the automatic review still does not run, force a check. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Groups > Active groups. Select your group and click Run guest review from the toolbar. This runs the review immediately and removes guests who meet the inactivity threshold.
5. Manually remove inactive guests if needed
   If the review runs but does not remove a specific guest, remove them manually. Go to Users > Guest users in the admin center. Find the guest, select them, and click Delete. Confirm the deletion. The guest loses access to the group and all associated Teams resources.

If Guest Review Still Has Issues After the Main Fix

Guest Review Does Not Remove a Guest Who Has No Recent Activity

Sometimes a guest appears inactive because they have not signed in, but they still have pending invitations or shared links. The review process may not count those as activity. To fix this, check the guest’s last activity date in the audit log. If the date is older than your threshold, remove the guest manually using the steps above. You can also set the guest review period to a shorter value, like 15 days, to catch these cases.

Guest Review Runs but Removes the Wrong Guests

If the review removes guests who are still active, the threshold is too low. For example, a guest who only checks files once a month may be removed if the threshold is 30 days. Increase the Guest review period to 90 days or more. Also make sure the group’s expiration policy is not set to a shorter period than the guest review threshold.

Guest Review Toggle Is Grayed Out in Teams Admin Center

The toggle may be grayed out if you do not have the correct admin role. You need the Teams administrator or Global administrator role to change guest policies. If you have the role, wait 24 hours after a group change for the policy to sync. If it is still grayed out, use PowerShell to check the effective policy. Run Get-CsTeamsGuestPolicy to see the current settings.

New Teams Guest Review vs Microsoft 365 Group Expiration: Key Differences

Item	New Teams Guest Review	Microsoft 365 Group Expiration
Purpose	Removes inactive guests from a team	Deletes the entire group after a set period
Trigger	Based on guest inactivity threshold	Based on group age or renewal
Scope	Only affects guest members	Affects all members, owners, and the group itself
Configuration location	Teams admin center > Guest policies	Microsoft 365 admin center > Groups > Expiration
Recovery	Guest can be re-invited	Group can be restored within 30 days

Conclusion

After a Microsoft 365 group change, you can restore guest review by checking the expiration policy and re-enabling the guest review toggle in the Teams admin center. Running a manual guest review and removing inactive guests manually gives you immediate control. Always verify the guest review period matches your expectations after any group modification. For ongoing monitoring, use the audit log to track guest activity and adjust the threshold as needed.