Microsoft Teams automatically removes members from External chat groups.

Anh Tran Dang Minh 20 Reputation points
2026-05-22T07:01:53.34+00:00

Screenshot_21

Hi everyone, I created a chat group to support customers. Today, a problem occurred where all members of the chat group, specifically company employees, were removed from the group without any action related to removing members...

How can I check and log this if I don't have administrator privileges?
Thank for help me!!

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Teams and channels | Manage a team or channel
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Answer accepted by question author

Tamara-Hu 16,860 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
2026-05-22T08:36:04.7866667+00:00

Hi @Anh Tran Dang Minh, 

Thanks for sharing the details and the screenshot. I understand how confusing and frustrating this situation can be, especially when it affects a large group chat you rely on. 

Regarding your question about checking logs: unfortunately, this is not something you can verify from a regular user account. Activities such as adding or removing participants in Microsoft Teams are recorded in the Microsoft 365 audit log, which is part of the compliance and security tools. Access to those logs is restricted to administrators (for example, Global Admin or Compliance Admin roles). So without those permissions, there isn’t a way to see who or what triggered the removal from your side. 

Given that, the best next step would be to involve your IT or Microsoft 365 administrator. I recommend sharing the following information with them: 

  • The exact time the removal happened .
  • The name of the chat (if applicable).
  • The screenshot of the system message showing the users being removed that you provided in this thread's description.

They can then search the audit log for Teams events around that time and identify whether it was caused by: 

  • A manual action by someone 
  • A policy or external access setting change 
  • An automated or backend process 

You can ask your admin to Search the audit log for Teams event using this official instruction: Search the audit log for events in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn 

In parallel, if the chat is critical for your work, you might consider creating a new group chat as a temporary workaround, since issues with external or mixed chats can sometimes prevent restoring the original one properly. 

If you need any further assistance, please don't hesitate to leave a comment. 

Thank you again for reaching out!

If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment". 

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

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  1. AI answer

    2026-05-22T07:02:06.9266667+00:00

    Microsoft Teams user-level tools do not let non-admins see detailed logs of who removed members or why a chat’s membership changed. Only tenant administrators can access the Unified Audit Log and related compliance/audit data.

    Given that:

    1. In a regular group chat (not a team/channel), any participant with permission can remove others if the admin has enabled that setting. The only in-product trace visible to end users is the system message in the chat: when someone is removed, a message appears stating who removed whom.
    2. For external chats, the organization that owns the chat applies its policies, including retention and access. External chats can become read-only or behave unexpectedly if participants in the owning org are removed or if policies change.
    3. Admins can use the Unified Audit Log and the RemoveAllAccessForUser Graph API to remove external chats from a user’s view, but this is only visible and actionable to admins.

    Without administrator privileges, the only checks available are:

    1. Open the affected chat and scroll back to look for system messages indicating:
      • “X removed Y from the chat”
      • “X left the chat” This is the only membership-change trace visible to regular users.
    2. Ask the Microsoft 365/Teams administrator in the company to:
      • Review Teams and external access settings.
      • Check the Unified Audit Log for events related to that chat (membership changes, policy actions, or use of RemoveAllAccessForUser).
      • Confirm whether any retention or compliance policy could have affected the chat.

    If the chat is external (with customers using other organizations or Microsoft accounts), also ask the admin to verify external access configuration as described in the external access documentation.

    There is no way for a non-admin user to independently access logs or audit trails beyond what appears as system messages in the chat itself.

    References:

    AI-generated content may be incorrect. Read our transparency notes for more information.

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