How Long Does Teams Stay Green on Your Phone? Only While It Is Open

On your phone, Teams stays green only while the Teams app is open on the screen and the phone is unlocked. Switch to another app or lock the phone and you turn yellow, Away, at once; Microsoft's admin documentation says mobile presence "becomes Away whenever the Teams app is in the background, and then becomes Offline after 24 hours of inactivity." On a computer, Teams stays green for 5 minutes with no mouse, keyboard or touch input. We downloaded the Teams client on 2 November 2026 and printed that timer, 300,000 ms, along with the rule that a hidden window turns you Away at once.

A phone can still help. When you are signed in on a computer and a phone, Teams takes your status from the device you used most recently. So opening Teams on the phone turns you green again after the laptop has gone idle, for as long as the app stays on screen. The rules and the settings that keep a phone on screen are below.

Your Teams status from the phone app

The background rule is the one people notice. On a computer, Teams waits 5 idle minutes before it shows Away. On a phone there is no wait. iOS and Android pause apps that are not on screen, and Teams reports Away as soon as it leaves the foreground. How to change the computer timer is in how to change Teams away time.

What the Teams client code says (2 November 2026)

The phone app's code is not public. The Teams web client is, and its presence code shows the computer side of these rules. We downloaded it from teams.microsoft.com/v2 with no sign-in and searched it with a short Python script. The script reads the client's idle class and its production config:

html = get("https://teams.microsoft.com/v2/")
entry = get(url_of("async-entry"))   # the client's main code
prod = get(url_of("config-prod"))    # its production settings
idle = entry[entry.find("static monitoredWindowEvents"):]
print(re.search(r"monitoredWindowEvents=(\[[^\]]*\])", idle).group(1))
print(re.search(r"MsUntilIdleDefault=([\de.]+)", idle).group(1))
print(re.search(r"appIdleTimeoutInMs:\[\{value:([\de.]+)\}\]", prod).group(1))
print("this._host.document.hidden?this.transitionToIdle()" in idle)

The output on 2 November 2026 at 07:07 UTC:

events that count as activity: ["scroll","DOMMouseScroll","mousewheel","touchstart","touchmove","mousemove","keydown"]
idle after (ms): 3e5 | long idle after (ms): 12e5
production config appIdleTimeoutInMs: 3e5
computer locked while active -> idle at once: True
computer suspending (sleep) -> idle at once: True
tab or window hidden -> idle at once: True

So the green dot lasts 300,000 ms, 5 minutes, after the last scroll, touch, mouse move or key press, and a second timer, MsUntilLongIdle, fires at 1,200,000 ms, 20 minutes. Locking the computer, putting it to sleep or hiding the Teams window skips the wait and turns you Away at once. A hidden window counting as idle at once matches what Microsoft documents for the phone app in the background: no 5-minute grace period.

Phone and computer together: the latest device decides

Microsoft's rule for more than one device: "the device where they were active most recently determines their presence." Microsoft gives an example. You work on the computer, so your status comes from the computer. When the computer disconnects, your status comes from the phone. Every combination of computer, phone and second PC is in Teams status on multiple devices.

In practice:

• • Laptop idle, phone open. You open Teams on the phone and it is now your latest active device, so you show Available.
• • Laptop idle, phone in pocket. Both report Away. You are Away.
• • Laptop asleep, phone in pocket. The laptop is disconnected, so your status comes from the phone, which is in the background: Away. After 24 hours without phone use: Offline.
• • Laptop active, phone in pocket. You used the laptop last, so you are Available.

This is where Teams and Slack differ. Slack shows you active if any one of your devices is active. Teams takes the most recent one. The rest of the differences are in keep Teams and Slack active.

How to keep Teams green on your phone

The only way is to keep the Teams app on screen with the phone unlocked. Here is how to make the phone allow that.

iPhone

• Open Settings, then Display & Brightness, then Auto-Lock, and choose Never.
• Turn off Low Power Mode. It forces Auto-Lock back to 30 seconds.
• To stop the app from being closed by a tap, turn on Guided Access under Settings, Accessibility, then triple-click the side button with Teams open.
• Keep the phone on a charger.

Android

• Open Settings, then Display, then Screen timeout, and choose the longest time.
• For a longer screen time while charging, turn on Developer options (tap Build number seven times), then turn on Stay awake.
• To keep Teams on screen, turn on App pinning under Security and pin Teams.

Menu names differ between Android makers. The same phone setups for Slack are in keep Slack active on iPhone and keep Slack active on Android.

The cost is a screen that stays on for hours and a phone you cannot use for anything else.

What does not keep Teams green on mobile

• • Notifications on. Notifications arrive while Teams is in the background, but the app is still in the background, so you are Away. To silence them after work without changing your status, use Teams quiet hours.
• • Background app refresh. It lets Teams fetch messages. It does not count as activity. Neither does a phone jiggler that rocks the phone.
• • Choosing Available by hand. Teams lets you pick a status only as available as the one it calculates, so Available does not hold when the app is in the background. Microsoft's example: if your calculated status is Do not disturb, you can choose Away but not Available.
• • A status duration. Durations work for every status except Available.

Teams mobile shows Away while I am using it

If you have Teams open on the phone and still show Away, check these:

• • Another device is newer. If you touched the laptop after the phone, the laptop's status wins. If the laptop then went idle, you can show Away.
• • A status you set. Appear away or Be right back stays until you change it. Select Reset status.
• • The app is stuck. Close Teams fully and reopen it, or sign out and back in.

More fixes are in Teams status stuck on Away, and every icon is in Microsoft Teams status icons meaning.

Teams on mobile vs Slack on mobile

For Slack, keep Slack active on mobile has every option. For the computer side of Teams, how to keep Teams status available covers lock, sleep and idle.