Disable Welcome Message for Microsoft 365 Groups

When a new user is added to a Microsoft 365 universal group, they automatically receive a standard welcome e-mail message with the following subject:

You've joined the <M365_Group_Name> group
 Welcome to the M365_Group_Name
Use the group to share messages and files, and to coordinate group events.

If your tenant users are allowed to create new groups in Microsoft 365 (Teams, Outlook), a large number of such notifications in the mailbox can really annoy your users.

You can use PowerShell to disable these welcome emails if you don’t want users in your Microsoft 365 group to receive them (there is no option to disable the welcome message in the Azure Portal or in the Exchange Admin Center web interface).

Install the Exchange Online PowerShell module:

Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement -Force -Scope AllUsers

Connect to your Microsoft 365 tenant with a Global Admin or Exchange Online Administrator account:

Connect-ExchangeOnline

Here’s how to check that the welcome message is enabled for the group:

Get-UnifiedGroup -Identity it_admins | select WelcomeMessageEnabled

Now, to disable it, run:

Get-UnifiedGroup it_admins | Set-UnifiedGroup -UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false

You can disable the welcome message for all Microsoft 365 groups in the tenant at once:

$M365Groups = Get-UnifiedGroup
foreach ($group in $M365Groups) {
Set-UnifiedGroup $group.Identity -UnifiedGroupWelcomeMessageEnabled:$false
}

Don’t forget to close the PowerShell session:

Disconnect-ExchangeOnline