Prevent users from leaving group (as an option for admin)
The possibility to leave the group is an important part of the group. But many times such group leaving possibility is not welcome at all.
In companies where admin needs to have control over many aspect it is somethign which definitely worry them.
This affects mostly Office 365 groups, which are used for company departments.
The email sender in a company needs to be sure that the email will be sent to all demartment members.
In distribution list it was prohibited for users to leave the group and as we know Office365 grops are well replacing the distribution lists.
Please at least make it this way that user can send request to group owner to leave the group and adfmin will decive if he ca leave the group.
Of course this should be only optional to the group and as default is should be possible to leave the group

Thanks for the feedback on this scenario. We’re considering adding this to the backlog.
19 comments
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Martin commented
We are struggling with the same problem in EDU tenant with over 900 000 users.
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Ken commented
This is a must-have for more than the education sector - any company could have a group that it is mandatory that if you are a member of the team you STAY a member of the team and can't just remove yourself if you wish - this should be a simple admin function setting at the team-admin level that can be controlled by the owner(s) of any given team. PLEASE ADD ASAP we all need this.
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Ahmad Moussa commented
Please we urgently need this feature as students are leaving all groups. Thanks in advance.
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Sanjay Dhingra commented
In Education, it is essential that students(members) should not be able to leave their Class Team. For members it should be locked and only owners can remove them. Only team owner or admin can do this
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Sujin MS commented
I need this option urgently because my students are leaving my teams group
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Rich commented
2nd this: Aaron commented · July 26, 2018 11:05 · Flag as inappropriate
Would love to use the new groups features, but for many of our Distribution Lists I can't migrate unless I can ensure that they can't leave the group OR unsubscribe. End users may not read all the important emails sent to them, but with a DL at least I can tell their manager "yes, it was delivered to their mail account". -
Erik Andersen commented
I would like to see this option as well.
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Alejandro commented
We want this too... we can't leave distribution list without this.
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Kathy Blasco commented
This option is a must to convert distribution lists to Office 365 groups. There are some groups where you would NEVER want members to leave the group. Most of the time you would ALWAYS want the members in these groups to receive the email in their personal inbox too. Seems to me administrators need the option to turn off the ability for members to leave a group AND another to force the member to follow the group so the member always gets a copy of the email in their inbox. This is important for instance, for a Human Resources email to all employees. For us, all employees is not everyone in our domain. Both employees and contractors share the same domain so a distribution list or office 365 group must separate the workforce. We have a desire to reduce and reuse as well. Distribution lists cannot be used in SharePoint permissions but Office 365 groups can. Prefer to have 1 place to update members of 'Employees' rather than an Office 365 group, outlook distribution list, and/or SharePoint Group!
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Anonymous commented
We need this feature, People shouldn't leave the group themselves. It should be a closed group.
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Anonymous commented
If we can control the group attribute not to allow user to leave and/or unsubscribe, it will be really really useful.
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Kari Vääränen commented
We have created company wide dynamic O365 groups. Users cannot leave the group but they can still unsubscribe from it. For the O365 to replace email distribution lists, we would need to be able to prevent users from unsubscribing from the company wide group.
If the users do not receive the company wide announcements in their inboxes - either willingly or by accident - the O365 groups do not replace distribution lists.
One workaround, though: If the email sender adds "@group name" in the email, the email is forced to go to user's inbox even if the user has selected not to "follow in inbox".
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Star D. commented
Out of votes, but supporting
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Anonymous commented
First you must realize the difference between - LEAVE and UNSUBSCRIBE, If you use dynamic membership then it will keep the user in the group but will ALLOW him to UNSUBSCRIBE - he will be able to read the content later if he open the group folders in Outlook but he WON'T receive msg in his INBOX
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Aaron commented
Would love to use the new groups features, but for many of our Distribution Lists I can't migrate unless I can ensure that they can't leave the group OR unsubscribe. End users may not read all the important emails sent to them, but with a DL at least I can tell their manager "yes, it was delivered to their mail account".
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Anonymous commented
This is vital. We can't find out after the fact that people aren't getting the most important email announcements. Love the new Office 365 group features and they make it easier to admin, but we need a toggle switch that prevents users from leaving a group or allowing them to unfollow the conversation. Please make this happen!
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Daniel Galley commented
Agreed. This would be very useful as we have some restriction rules based on group membership and need to make sure that members remain in the group to ensure they comply with policy.
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Wigglewatts commented
Let's get some votes on this - a previous thread was closed with the wrong response from an admin long ago.
https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/286611-office-365-groups/suggestions/15906502-remove-the-ability-for-users-to-unsubscribe-from-aDon't bother voting for that one.
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Matthew LeHew commented
Agreed. O365 Groups are a great tool but there are situations where an organization would want to enforce mandatory group membership.