How do I delete old Teams accounts?

Hi @Jay Janson,

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

I understand your expectation, and I’d like to clarify the current behavior. On macOS, Microsoft Teams does not yet offer a simple “click, delete, confirm” option to remove old accounts from the sign‑in screen. Because of this, the usual workaround is to sign out and then clear the saved sign‑in tokens or cached data on the Mac.

To help with this, you can try the following options:

Option 1: Sign out or remove accounts within Teams

If you’re still able to sign in to Teams with one of the accounts, please try signing out of the old accounts first by selecting your profile picture and choosing Sign out or Switch accounts. When available, this is the cleanest approach.

Option 2: Reset Teams by clearing cached account data (macOS Ventura)

First, completely exit Microsoft Teams by right‑clicking the Teams icon in the Dock and selecting Exit.

Then clear Teams cache:

Next, open Keychain Access and delete any entries related to Microsoft Teams.

Once that’s done, restart your Mac to ensure the changes take effect.

If the issue continues after trying these steps, the next option would be to uninstall Teams, remove the related user files, and then download and install the latest version of Teams.

I hope this information is helpful. Please try the steps above and let me know how it goes. If this doesn’t resolve the issue, or if I’ve misunderstood your situation, feel free to let me know and we can work through it together.

Thank you for your patience and understanding. I look forward to your reply.

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.

On macOS, Teams accounts are tied to both the Teams app and cached credentials on the device, and in some cases to the underlying Microsoft account itself. To “completely erase” old accounts, use these steps:

1. Sign out of each old account in Teams
   • Open Microsoft Teams on the Mac.
   • Select the profile picture at the top of the app.
   • Select Sign out for each account that is currently signed in.
2. Remove stored Teams credentials from macOS Keychain
   • In the Finder, go to Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access.
   • In Keychain Access, search for entries related to Microsoft/Teams (for example, items containing Microsoft, Teams, or the old email addresses).
   • Right‑click each credential for the old accounts and select Delete "[account name]".
3. Clear Teams local data for stuck/old orgs (if needed)
   If old organizations or accounts still appear after sign‑out and Keychain cleanup, remove Teams’ local data and reinstall:
   • Quit Teams completely.
   • Open Terminal (Applications > Utilities > Terminal).
   • Run:

          rm -rf ~/Library/Group\ Containers/UBF8T346G9.com.microsoft.teams
          rm -rf ~/Library/Containers/com.microsoft.teams2
     

   • Optionally delete any Teams shortcut from the desktop or Dock.
   • Reinstall Teams and sign in only with the desired account(s).
4. Leave old Teams organizations (Teams Free)
   If any of the old accounts are Microsoft Teams Free work/school organizations that still show up under “Accounts and orgs”:
   • In Teams (desktop or web), go to Settings.
   • Select Accounts and orgs.
   • Under Organizations, select Leave next to each organization that should be removed.
   • Confirm Leave in the browser window that opens.
   • Wait a few hours, then sign out and back in; the orgs should no longer appear.
5. If the goal is to permanently close the Microsoft account itself
   If any of the “old accounts” are consumer Microsoft accounts that should be fully closed (not just removed from the Mac):
   • Review the guidance in How to close your Microsoft account to ensure no important data is left behind and optionally export important Teams data, such as contacts and conversation history.
   • Then go to the Microsoft account closure page and follow the steps to close the account.
     Note: Closing a Microsoft account also affects Outlook.com, OneDrive, Skype, Xbox Live, and other Microsoft consumer services that use that account.

After these steps, the old accounts should no longer appear in Teams on the Mac, and any associated credentials will be removed from the device. For work or school accounts that belong to an organization, full removal of the account itself (not just from the Mac) must be handled by that organization’s IT admin.

References:

• Sign out or remove an account from Microsoft Teams
• Uninstall Microsoft Teams
• How to close the Microsoft account you use for Microsoft Teams Free
• Leave a work or school organization in Microsoft Teams Free
• Use a screen reader to create and modify teams in Microsoft Teams
• Issue when going to a live teams meeting - Microsoft Q&A
• Unable to remove Organization from Teams on my Mac - Microsoft Q&A