I cannot add certain people as EXTERNAL and see them as GUEST.

Dear @Charlotte JIANG,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

I understand that you can’t add certain people as external in Teams or Microsoft 365. Before giving you the best solution, could you please confirm these questions below to help me diagnose the issue more effectively:

• If you are using business account (@company.com), are you the admin in your company?
• Which platform are you using? Are you trying to add them via Teams desktop app, Teams web, or Admin Center?
• What type of external users are these? Are they from a specific domain, or does this happen across multiple domains?
• What happens when you try to add them? Do you get an error message, or does the option to add them as EXTERNAL not appear at all?
• Do you have the right permissions? Are you a Teams's Owner or Admin, or just a member?
• Have these users been added before? Were they previously guests in your tenant, or is this the first time?
• Does it work in Teams Web or after clearing cache? This helps rule out client-side issues.

Firstly, if you're experiencing issues that affect Microsoft Teams, clearing the cache on your device may help. After you clear the cache, restart Teams.

Note: Restarting Teams after you clear the cache might take longer than usual because the Teams cache files have to be rebuilt.

For more information and detailed instruction, please follow the Microsoft Official Guide here: Clear the Teams client cache

If the issue still persists, since External access and guest access are controlled by your organization’s admin settings. If your colleagues can see these people as External, it means external access is enabled for them, but your account might have restricted permissions. Therefore, please kindly ask your IT Admin to check the policies again.

If others can add these guests, your account may have a different Teams policy applied. Admin can check this in Teams Admin Center > Users > "User" > Policies.

Note: If you are user, please kindly ask your admin to do so

For more information, please follow the Microsoft Official Guide here:

• IT Admins - Manage external meetings and chat with people and organizations using Microsoft identities
• Use the Teams admin center to manage lobby options in meetings hosted by your organization
• Use guest access and external access to collaborate with people outside your organization
• Turn guest access in Microsoft Teams on or off

I hope this information is helpful. Please follow these steps and let me know if it works for you. If not, we can work together to resolve this. If I misunderstood any information from you, please don’t hesitate to reaching out. I'm here for assist. 

Note: Please understand that our initial response does not always resolve the issue immediately. However, you can try workaround and share us more detailed information, we can work together to find a solution.      

Thank you for your patience and your understanding. If you have any questions or stuck on any steps, please feel free to reach out.

I'm looking forward for your reply.

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