Does Teams Stay Green on Mobile? Only With the App on Screen
Teams on your phone shows Available only while the app is open on screen. In the background you are Away, and after 24 hours without use, Offline. How the phone and the computer combine, and how to keep the phone green.
No. Microsoft Teams on your phone keeps you green, Available, only while the Teams app is open on the screen. Microsoft's admin documentation says that on a mobile device your presence "becomes Away whenever the Teams app is in the background, and then becomes Offline after 24 hours of inactivity." Switch to another app or lock the phone, and you go yellow.
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
| What the phone is doing | Teams status |
|---|---|
| Teams open on screen, phone unlocked | Available |
| Teams in the background, another app open | Away |
| Phone locked while Teams was on screen | Away |
| No Teams use on the phone for 24 hours | Offline |
| On a Teams call from the phone | In a call |
| Appear offline, set by you | Offline until you change it |
The background rule is the one people notice. On a computer, Teams waits 5 idle minutes before it shows Away; that 300,000 ms limit is in the Teams client's own code, printed in how to change Teams away time. 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.
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- • 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.
- • 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.
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
Android
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
Teams mobile shows Away while I am using it
If you have Teams open on the phone and still show Away, check these:
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
| Teams on a phone | Slack on a phone | |
|---|---|---|
| Green while | The app is on screen | The app is on screen |
| App in background | Away | Away within seconds |
| With a computer too | The latest active device decides | Any active device keeps you green |
| After long phone inactivity | Offline after 24 hours | Away |
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.
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