Microsoft Teams personal and work/school can now run side-by-side

Microsoft Teams PC
Microsoft Teams PC (Image credit: Future)

What you need to know

  • Microsoft Teams now supports having a personal and work/school account open at the same time.
  • The feature has been rolling out gradually since February 2021.
  • Teams does not support having two work/school accounts open at the same time.

People using Microsoft Teams on their PC can now have a personal and work/school account open at the same time. Previously, you'd have to toggle between accounts. The functionality makes it much easier to communicate through the personal and work/school versions of Teams at the same time.

I spotted the new functionality after an update to Teams on both of my PCs. The capability has been rolling out gradually since February, according to the Microsoft 365 roadmap.

The icons of the two instances of Microsoft Teams are slightly different to make them easy to differentiate. The personal version of Teams has its logo within a white circle, while the work/school version just shows the app's logo.

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Source: Windows Central (Image credit: Source: Windows Central)

At this time, there isn't an option to run multiple instances of work/school accounts at the same time.

Microsoft appears to be pushing the personal version of Teams a bit harder these days. A "Chat" app powered by the personal version of Teams will ship with Windows 11.

Sean Endicott
News Writer

Sean Endicott is a News Writer at Windows Central, where he covers Windows 11, Surface hardware, Microsoft 365, AI, apps, and the broader PC ecosystem. Since joining the site in 2017, he has written well over a thousand articles across the Microsoft landscape, covering breaking news, analysis, and feature reporting.

He writes Windows Wrap, a weekly column covering the biggest stories in Windows and the PC industry, and what they mean for the platform going forward.

Before joining Windows Central full-time, Sean worked in journalism and media production after earning a First Class degree in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University. Outside of tech, he is an award-winning American football coach based in Nottingham, England, and was named BAFCA Youth Coach of the Year in 2024.