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Quick Answer: To disable automatic Teams meeting in Outlook classic, go to File > Options > Calendar and uncheck “Add online meetings to all meetings” option. New Outlook and Outlook.com users should go to Settings > Calendar > Events and Invitations and uncheck the “Add online meetings to all meetings” option.
When you create a new calendar event in Outlook, by default it creates an online Teams meeting. This meeting link is automatically shared with every attendee of that event. The link remains even when you manually share an Outlook calendar event. However, often the organizer wants to have an offline meeting on the office premises. But the online meeting invitation creates unnecessary confusion among the employees regarding the location of the event.
To remove these issues, Outlook users can turn off Teams meeting in Outlook. In this guide, we will discuss the steps to disable default Teams meeting in Outlook. Moreover, we will also see how you can perform a similar operation for multiple users and for all the users in your organization using the Exchange Online PowerShell cmdlets.
What to Know Before You Disable Teams Meeting in Outlook
Before you turn off the default Teams meeting option, keep these points in mind so you don’t run into surprises.
- Disabling it Only Stops Automatic Creation, Not Teams Itself: The setting only prevents Outlook from adding a Teams link to every new event. Teams stays fully functional, and you can still add a meeting link manually to any event.
- The Setting Applies to New Events Only: Meetings you already created keep their Teams links. To remove one, open the event and delete the Teams meeting details manually.
- Outlook Settings Take the Highest Priority: The order of precedence is: User’s Outlook settings (highest priority) Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration (user-level PowerShell) Set-OrganizationConfig (tenant-level PowerShell, lowest priority) If a user has enabled the option in Outlook, neither cmdlet will turn it off.
- The Steps Differ by Outlook Version: Outlook Classic (Windows), Outlook for Mac, and New Outlook/Outlook.com each use a different menu path. Check which version you are using before following the steps.
- The Option May Be Missing or Greyed Out: If you can’t find “Add online meeting to all meetings,” your account may not be a Microsoft 365 account, or your admin may be managing the setting through policy. Contact your IT administrator in that case.
- Admin Permissions are Needed for Powershell: Running the cmdlets requires Exchange Online PowerShell access and admin-level permissions. Make sure you are connected to Exchange Online before you run any command.
- Changes May Take Time to Reflect: Tenant-wide or mailbox-level changes made through PowerShell may not appear instantly. Ask users to restart Outlook or sign out and back in to see the update.
Steps to Disable Default Teams Meeting Option in Outlook?
There are simple ways to disable default Teams meeting in Outlook, be it Windows/Mac desktop client or web version. Let’s see the steps for different Outlook versions:
Outlook Desktop Client for Windows Users
- Open the Outlook client on your system. Click on the File tab.
- Click on Options at the bottom left of the window.
- In the Outlook Options window, select Calendar.
- In the Calendar category, under the Calendar options uncheck “Add online meeting to all meetings”. Then, click OK to save the changes.
Outlook Desktop Client for Mac Users
- Open the Outlook client on your Mac system.
- From the menu toolbar, click on Outlook and select Preferences from the drop-down menu.
- In the Outlook Preferences window, go to the Other tab and select Calendar.
- Under Calendar options, uncheck the box against ‘Add online meeting to all meetings (Applies to M365 accounts only).’
Disable Teams Meeting in Outlook.com and New Outlook
- Log in to Outlook.com using your credentials.
- Click on the Settings icon, present at the top right corner.
- Scroll down and select View all Outlook settings. (Skip this step in New Outlook)
- Click on Calendar under the Settings menu. Select Events and invitations and uncheck the Add Online meeting to all meetings option.
- Click Save to save all the newly made changes.
Disable Default Teams Meeting in Outlook for Multiple Users
When you turn off Teams meeting in Outlook, it is only disabled for a single user. For multiple users, you have to repeat the above steps for all the target users. Or you can use Exchange Online PowerShell to disable Teams meetings.
Using the Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration cmdlet in PowerShell, an administrator can manage the automatic creation of Microsoft Teams meeting from Outlook for a user. To disable the meeting, do the following:
- Open PowerShell and connect to Exchange Online
- Run the command:
- Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration –Identity “user-mailbox-name” – OnlineMeetingsByDefaultEnabled $false
It only disables the meeting for the user mailbox mentioned in the command. For multiple users, you have to run the command multiple times. Also, the above command does not override the changes made in the Outlook calendar settings. Meaning, if a user enabled the “Add online meetings to all meetings” option through Outlook but disabled it using the Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration command, then the command will not turn off Teams meeting in Outlook. The Outlook settings will be given priority.
Disable Automatic Teams Meeting Creation in Outlook for the Entire Organization
If you are an admin or have the equivalent permissions, you can prevent the online meeting creation for your entire organization. To do so, in the PowerShell, run this command:
Set-OrganizationConfig -OnlineMeetingsByDefaultEnabled $false
Note: Microsoft clearly says that the Set-OrganizationConfig command will override the settings configured with the Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration command. However, the settings made at the user level using the Outlook email client will take the utmost priority, and neither of the above two cmdlets will override them.
How to Schedule Teams Meetings After Disabling the Meetings in Outlook?
So far, we have only talked about how to disable default Teams meeting in Outlook, but what happens in case you want to have an online meeting? Can you still create a Teams meeting for an event if you have disabled the automatic meeting creation? Yes, you can.
Even if the “Add online meetings to all meetings” option is unchecked, you can directly access the calendar event and create a new online meeting with your team. The steps we discussed in the above sections are only to prevent the default behavior of the calendar to avoid confusion in the organization. It does not affect manually creating online meetings.
Does the Disable Teams Meeting Setting Stay After a Teams Migration?
No, it would not. This setting is directly tied to a tenant and does not transfer whether you are using the native or a professional Microsoft Teams migration tool. If you want the new tenant to avoid creating online Teams meeting links whenever you add an event in the calendar, you have to manually disable default Teams meeting in Outlook using the steps we discussed above.
Conclusion
Automatic online meeting creation in Outlook creates confusion, makes it difficult to manage tasks in Office 365, and adds unnecessary clutter. To avoid it, disable Teams meeting in Outlook or use the Exchange Online PowerShell.
For a few users, use calendar options in Outlook. To turn off default Teams meeting in Outlook for a large number of users, using the MailboxCalendarConfiguration command will save you time.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ans: In Outlook classic, go to File > Options > Calendar and uncheck “Add online meeting to all meetings.” In New Outlook or Outlook.com, go to Settings > Calendar > Events and invitations and turn off the same option, then save. Now, when your team members open the shared calendar, they will not get an automatically generated online meeting links.
Ans: Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell and run Set-OrganizationConfig -OnlineMeetingsByDefaultEnabled $false. This applies to the whole tenant. For individual users, use Set-MailboxCalendarConfiguration -Identity “user-mailbox-name” -OnlineMeetingsByDefaultEnabled $false.
Ans: Settings made by the user inside Outlook take the highest priority. They override both the user-level cmdlet and the organization-level cmdlet. If a user has enabled “Add online meetings to all meetings” in Outlook, PowerShell cannot turn it off. The user must change it in Outlook themselves.
