Microsoft 365 makes collaboration easier with guest access and external sharing through the services such as Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive for Business. In this article, we will explore the difference between guest access and external access, and learn about external users and guest users.
External access: Gives you the ability to share SharePoint Online and OneDrive files with external users. In Microsoft Teams, you can find external user contacts and send instant private chat messages, make audio and video calls, and schedule meetings. But if you want to grant access to your teams and channel resources, then you need to add the external user as a guest user and add as a team member.
Guest access: Allows you to share content with guest users who are a member of Microsoft 365 groups or Microsoft Teams. When you add an external user as a member of the team, the user will be added as a guest user in your tenant directory and a guest invite will be sent to the user. Once the user accepted the invitation and the team owner granted guest access, then the user can access the team’s resources and join channel conversation.
External Access Summary
- Allows sharing content with external users in OneDrive and SharePoint files.
- Users can search users from external tenants.
- Users can search personal user accounts who use Teams or Skype for Business.
- Users can send private chat messages in Microsoft Teams.
- Allows to make audio and video calls.
- Allows to schedule Teams meeting with external users.
- Can allow or block access to an entire domain.
Guest Access Summary
- Allows sharing content with guest members in Microsoft Teams or Microsoft 365 groups.
- Allows guest members to join teams channel conversation with other team members.
- Allows to include guest members in Teams channel meetings.
- Guest user account will be created in Azure AD tenant directory.
- User identity and access controlled by your tenant.
- Grant access to individual users.
Difference between Guest users vs External users
We do not have a solid difference between guest users and external users. In most places, we use both terms interchangeably. We can simply call the users as external users who use only the external access features such as Teams private chat and SharePoint file sharing. Meanwhile, the external users who are all added as a member of Teams/Groups called as guest users.
In other words, the users who use external access features can be called external users and the users who have been invited and added as a team/group guest member are called guest users. So, a user can be both as an external user and a guest user.
After inviting a guest user, a new user account will be created for the user in your Azure AD Tenant directory with user type as Guest. You can list all the guest users by using the PowerShell command Get-AzureADUser.
Get-AzureADUser -All $true | Where-Object {$_.UserType -eq "Guest"}
You can use the Get-SPOExternalUser cmdlet to list external users who have access to any one of your SharePoint Online site or OneDrive for Business site. Refer to this post for more details: Get external users list in Sharepoint Online using Powershell
- Add guest user and team member from Azure AD portal »
- Enable guest access and add guest user in Microsoft Teams »
- How to make Private Chat, Calls and Meetings with External users »