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Manage ownerless Microsoft 365 groups and teams

  • Article

A team in Microsoft Teams or a Microsoft 365 group can become ownerless if an owner's account is deleted in Microsoft 365. Groups and teams require an owner to add or remove members and change group settings.

This article teaches you how to handle ownerless Microsoft 365 groups in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

How the ownerless group policy works

An Exchange administrator or Groups administrator can create a policy that automatically asks the members who are the most active in the group if they accept ownership.

When a member accepts the invitation to become an owner, the action is logged in the compliance portal audit log.

If there's no group activity, the policy asks random group members to accept ownership.

Requirements of the ownerless group policy

To set up and manage the Microsoft 365 ownerless group policy, one of the following requirements must be met:

  • An eligible Microsoft 365 subscription

    • Eligible plans include Business Premium, Microsoft 365 Enterprise E3 and E5, Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Government G3 and G5, Microsoft 365 Education A3 and A5, and Frontline F1 and F3.

  • An Azure P1 or P2 premium plan

    • All notification options in the ownerless groups policy require an Azure premium plan because a security group is used to specify which group members receive ownership notifications. Security groups are a feature of Azure premium plans.

Limitations of the ownerless group policy

Managing ownerless groups using this policy has a few limitations, which are explained in the following list:

  • The ownerless group policy only applies to Microsoft 365 groups.

    • Not all SharePoint, Stream, and other apps' groups are Microsoft 365 groups. Viva Engage groups are Microsoft 365 groups if the tenant is in Native mode.

  • You can't batch update the groups the policy targets.

    • You can only search for and add one Microsoft 365 group at a time to this policy.

Set up the ownerless group or team policy

  1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, expand Settings and select Org settings.
  2. On the Services tab, select Microsoft 365 Groups.
  3. Select the When there's no owner, email and ask active group members to become an owner checkbox.
  4. If you want to keep the default configuration settings, select Save.

Customize the ownerless group policy

  1. On the Microsoft 365 Groups pane, select Configure policy.
  2. On the Weekly notification options page, specify who can receive ownership notifications. If you choose to allow or block certain members, then search for and add the security group that you want to use.
    1. Using a security group to limit who can be invited to be an owner requires that you possess but not necessarily assign a Microsoft Azure P1 or P2 license for each Microsoft 365 group member in your organization.
    2. Type the number of active members that you want to notify, and select the number of weeks to send the notification. The notification list is created during the first notification and doesn't change.
    3. Select Next.
  3. On the Who is this email coming from page, select a sender for the email, and then select Next.
    1. Shared mailboxes aren't supported. The sender must be either a user mailbox or a group mailbox.
  4. On the Subject and message page, customize the email and optionally include a policy guideline URL, and then select Next.
    1. You can't have the notification's language change based on the recipient's country or region.
  5. On the Select which groups to target page, select Specific groups, and choose the groups and teams that you want to include in this policy, or select All groups.
    1. A maximum of 50 groups can be selected.
  6. Select Next.
  7. On the Review and finish page, confirm your settings and select Finish, and then select Done.

After you set up the ownerless group policy

Notifications are sent weekly starting within 24 hours of policy creation. Notifications and responses are tracked in the audit log.

If a user is a part of multiple ownerless groups, they can receive separate weekly notifications, one for each group they're an active member of.

When someone accepts or declines group ownership

Up to two members per group can accept the invitation to become an owner. Once someone accepts ownership, the policy stops sending notifications to the group's members.

If a member declines ownership, they stop receiving the weekly notifications.

If a member doesn't accept or decline ownership, they keep receiving the weekly notifications for the number of weeks specified in the policy.

When no one accepts group ownership

After the end of the notification period specified in the policy, the policy stops sending notifications. In this scenario, the ownerless groups policy takes no further action and it's up to tenant admins to find and assign an owner for each ownerless group.

See which groups are ownerless

Admins can see which Microsoft 365 groups remain ownerless by searching the audit log in the Microsoft Purview portal. To search for ownerless groups, follow these steps:

  1. Sign in to the Microsoft Purview portal.
  2. Select the Audit solution card.
    1. If the Audit solution card isn't displayed, select View all solutions, and then select Audit in the Core section.
  3. On the Search page, in the Activities - friendly names field, select Unattended ownerless group from the dropdown list.
  4. Select the Search button.

Common issues with the ownerless group policy

  • Exchange Online throttles policy notifications.

    • Because this policy sends notifications from one mailbox, the policy's notification emails could be throttled if there are too many ownerless groups in your organization. Exchange Online mailboxes are limited to 10,000 sent emails per day.

  • The action buttons Yes and No aren't available in a forwarded notification email.

    • If a member forwards their notification email to a different member, the forward recipient can't accept or decline the invitation.

  • Member can't see Yes and No in the notification email.

    • Notification emails should be opened in a separate window, not a preview pane. If the member views the notification in an email preview pane, they can't see the Yes and No options.
    • Make sure that the user principal name (UPN) and primary email address of the sender are the same. For information about how to update the UPN or primary email address of a user, see Change a user name and email address. If they don't match, the recipient can't see the Yes and No options.

  • The policy for ownerless groups is configured, but group members don't receive notifications.

    • This issue occurs if the specified sender in the policy doesn't have a user or group mailbox provisioned in Exchange Online. If the sender has a user or group mailbox, check the audit log in the Microsoft Purview portal to trace whether email notifications were sent.
    • Members who don't have a user mailbox provisioned in Exchange Online don't receive notifications.