Overview

When you schedule a meeting in Outlook or Microsoft Teams, invited attendees can normally forward the meeting invitation to other people.

If you want to control who attends your meeting, Outlook allows you to disable invitation forwarding. This helps ensure that only the people you invite can receive the meeting details directly from you.

Preventing forwarding is particularly useful for:

• Confidential meetings
• Hiring or interview panels
• Meetings involving sensitive information
• Small working groups
• Executive or leadership meetings

Note: Disabling forwarding prevents recipients from forwarding the invitation using Outlook. It does not prevent someone from manually sharing meeting details or copying the meeting link.

Prevent Meeting Invitation Forwarding

1. Open Outlook.
2. Create a new meeting or open an existing meeting that you organized.
3. On the Meeting tab, select Response Options.
4. Clear the Allow Forwarding checkbox.
5. Send or update the meeting invitation.

Recipients will no longer be able to forward the meeting invitation using Outlook.

What Happens When Forwarding Is Disabled?

When Allow Forwarding is turned off:

• Invitees cannot use Outlook's Forward option for the meeting invitation.
• Only the organizer can add or remove attendees.
• Attendees can still accept, decline, or propose a new meeting time (depending on meeting settings).

Frequently Asked Questions

Does this prevent someone from sharing the meeting link?

No.

Disabling forwarding only prevents Outlook from forwarding the invitation itself. Someone could still manually copy the meeting information or share the meeting link.

For meetings containing sensitive information, consider also reviewing your Microsoft Teams Meeting Options, including:

• Who can bypass the lobby
• Who can present
• Whether anonymous users are allowed to join

Can I turn forwarding back on?

Yes.

Open the meeting invitation, select Response Options, and enable Allow Forwarding before sending an update to attendees.

Does this work for both Outlook and Microsoft Teams meetings?

Yes.

Teams meetings scheduled through Outlook use Outlook meeting invitations, so the Allow Forwarding setting applies to both standard Outlook meetings and Teams meetings.

Best Practices

For meetings that contain confidential or sensitive information:

• Disable meeting invitation forwarding.
• Review your Teams Meeting Options before sending the invitation.
• Restrict who can bypass the meeting lobby.
• Limit presenter permissions when appropriate.
• Invite only the people who need to attend.