Cannot access Teams using a hotmail email address #Teams

Dear @Richard Mahoney,

When a company “adds your Hotmail address to Teams,” what’s actually happening is guest access: their tenant creates a Microsoft Entra B2B guest account for you and ties it to the email you were invited with.

To ensure I understand your request correctly and to support you as effectively as possible, I need more specific information from you:

• Could you provide a screenshot of the issue?

In the meantime, kindly try these steps:

1. Sign out of Teams completely and sign back in. When prompted, choose the account/org that shows as (Guest) for their organization (or a “Switch” option).
2. Please refer to this article to clear cache Teams. Clear the Teams client cache - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn
3. Try to log in this account on a browser or private/incognito window.
4. If the issue persists, please contact with the IT Admin of that organization and ask them to check the guess access permission again. Guest access in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

I hope this fulfil your request, if it does not, please share more detailed information which I could help you efficiently.

As a moderator, I do not have the tools to investigate your specific account directly because this is a user-to-user support forum. Our role is limited to providing technical support on reported issues, requests, or ideas. However, I will try my best to support as clearly as possible.

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

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

The behavior typically means there is an account or tenant/access issue rather than a problem with the Hotmail address itself.

Try the following steps:

1. Confirm whether Teams access is still provisioned for that Hotmail address in the organization’s tenant.
   • The organization’s IT admin must verify that the guest/user account tied to the Hotmail address is still present and not blocked or removed in their Microsoft 365/Teams tenant. If the account or tenant is blocked, only the organization’s admin can restore access.
2. Sign in via a private/incognito browser session
   • Open a private/incognito window.
   • Go to https://teams.microsoft.com.
   • Sign in using the Hotmail address that was granted access.
   • This avoids cached credentials or conflicting accounts (for example, if the Hotmail address is also tied to another Microsoft account type).
3. If the Hotmail/Microsoft account itself is blocked
   • If sign-in fails more broadly (not just to Teams) and Outlook/Hotmail shows that the account is blocked because of unusual activity, follow the unblock flow described in “Unblock my Outlook.com account” using the Sign-in Helper.
4. If Teams shows a sign-in banner or keeps asking to sign in again
   • In the Teams app, select the Sign in banner or button and complete any prompts (including MFA if configured).
   • If the sign-in window does not appear, quit and reopen Teams, then try again.
   • Ensure the required network (for example, VPN) is connected before opening Teams, if the organization enforces such policies.
5. If access still fails
   • Contact the organization’s IT admin or the person who originally invited the Hotmail address to the Teams site and ask them to:
     • Confirm the guest account is enabled and licensed as needed.
     • Check for any tenant-level blocks or conditional access policies that might prevent sign-in from that account or device.

If the Hotmail account is healthy and the sign-in steps above work for other Microsoft services, the fix must be done by the organization’s Teams/Microsoft 365 admin in their tenant.

References:

• Why am I having trouble signing in to Microsoft Teams?
• Restore your access to Microsoft Teams
• Unblock my Outlook.com account
• How to sign in to Hotmail