How to Identify External Users or Domains Communicated with via Microsoft Teams

Question

We are trying to identify all external users or domains that our organization's users have communicated with using Microsoft Teams (chat, meetings, or calls). Is there a way to extract or generate a report showing these external interactions—either from the Teams admin center, Microsoft 365 compliance center, or using PowerShell?

Ideally, we’d like to see:

• The external domain or email
• The internal user(s) who interacted with them
• The type of communication (chat, call, meeting)
• Date/time of interaction (if available)

What is the best method or tool to obtain this information?

Answer 1

Hi Prabinesh, 

To identify all external users or domains that your organization's users have interacted with via Microsoft Teams (chat, meetings, or calls), Microsoft provides several tools and methods. Here's a breakdown of the best approaches: 

1. External Domain Activity Report – Microsoft Teams Admin Center 

This report provides a high-level overview of external chat interactions. 

Steps: 

1. Go to the Microsoft Teams Admin Center.
2. Navigate to Analytics & reports > Usage reports.
3. Under the View reports tab, select External domain activity.
4. Choose a date range (7 to 180 days).
5. Click Run report and wait for the data to generate.

Note: 

• Only shows chat activity (no calls or meetings).
• Does not display specific internal user names.
• Detailed message counts are only available with Teams Premium.

For details, refer to Microsoft’s official documentation:   

Microsoft Teams external domain activity report - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn 

2. Microsoft Purview Content Search 

This method allows you to search for external communications across Teams, email, and more. 

Steps: 

1. Go to the Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal.
2. Navigate to Content search > New search.
3. Select All mailboxes to include Teams chat and email.
4. In the Keywords field, enter:NOT participants:@yourcompanydomain.com 
   Replace yourcompanydomain.com with your actual domain to filter out internal users.
5. Click Search and wait for results.
6. Click the search name to view results and choose Export results to download an Excel file.

For details, refer to Microsoft’s official documentation:   

Get started with Content search | Microsoft Learn 

Finding content in Microsoft Teams in eDiscovery | Microsoft Learn 

Keyword queries and search conditions for eDiscovery | Microsoft Learn 

3. Microsoft Purview Audit Logs 

Use this method to track detailed user activities, including Teams interactions. 

Steps: 

1. Go to Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal.
2. Navigate to Solutions > Audit.
3. If prompted, enable audit logging (wait 30–60 minutes for activation).
4. Click Audit search.
5. Set filters: 
   1. Date range
   2. Activities: Search for “Teams” and select relevant actions (e.g., message sent, meeting created).
   3. Users: Optional – filter by specific users.
6. Click Search to view logs.

For details, refer to Microsoft’s official documentation:   

Search the audit log for events in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn 

Audit log activities | Microsoft Learn 

Thank you again for reaching out to the Microsoft Community. 

Best regards 

Rin-L MSFT | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

Thank you, Rin for your response. This was helpful.

Answer 3

Hi Prabinesh, 

If you still have further concerns, please feel free to let me know.