Users cant be searched

kodi 10 Reputation points
2025-06-05T06:02:09.41+00:00

Users aren't appearing in Microsoft Teams search results. Anyone who has previously chatted with the user can still message them.

The issue occurs on both the web and desktop versions of Teams. The “search by name” feature was enabled in the Teams admin center, but no improvement has been seen.

Microsoft Teams Development
Microsoft Teams Development
Microsoft Teams: A Microsoft customizable chat-based workspace.Development: The process of researching, productizing, and refining new or existing technologies.
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  1. Jack-Bu 1,160 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-06-05T10:57:10.7633333+00:00

    Hi kodi@hotmail

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

    I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing issues with users not appearing in Microsoft Teams search results. This may be due to several reasons and here are a few things you can check: 

    1. Special characters: If the user's name contains special characters (such as brackets), Teams may not handle these characters correctly, which affects the search results. 
    2. External users: If the user you are trying to search for is an external user (not in your organization), you may need to ensure that external access permissions are set correctly. Please refer to External federated contacts don't appear in Teams search for more information. 
    3. Re-check users in M365 admin center: Navigate to Users > Active users in the Microsoft 365 admin center to ensure the users you want to search for are active. 
    4. Search by name: If you have already turned on "Search by name" in the Teams Admin Center, this change may take several hours to take effect. And according to Limit who users can see when searching the directory in Teams. It mentions that "When Scope directory search using an Exchange address book policy is turned on, most accounts that are marked as hidden in Exchange don't show up in Teams searches so you need to check those users by below instruction in Exchange admin center".  So, you need to check your ents in Exchange admin center to by the below instruction: 

    User's image

    1. Address book policies (ABPs): If your organization has configured Address book policies, it might affect the search results of each group of users. For more information, check via this link: Address book policies in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn 

    I hope these steps help resolve the issue. If you need further assistance, feel free to ask! 


    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".  

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