Teams approvals vs email approvals: which one should your team use?

Short answer: use the Teams Approvals app when you want a saved record of who approved what, and when. Use email when the approver is outside your company, or when the decision is rare and informal. Most teams end up using both, so pick one as the default and say so.

This guide compares the two side by side. It covers the audit trail, reminders, mobile use, licensing and limits. Where email wins, it says so.

What each one is

Email approval means you write a message, someone replies "approved," and the reply sits in two inboxes. It needs no setup. Everyone already knows how to do it.

Teams Approvals is an app inside Microsoft Teams. You open it, choose "New approval request," add a name, the approvers and any attachment, and send. You can also choose the order the approvers answer in. You can open the "Sent" tab later to see where a request stands.

The app is built in. Microsoft says it is available as a personal app for all Teams users, and that an admin can turn it off in the Teams admin center.

Audit trail

This is the biggest gap.

With email, the record is a reply. You can search for it, but nobody can see it except the people on the thread. If someone forwards the thread, the history splits. A year later, finding "who approved the invoice" means searching a mailbox, maybe the wrong one.

With Teams Approvals, Microsoft says the app logs events in the Microsoft Purview audit log. The events include created, viewed, approved, rejected, canceled, shared, file attached and reassigned. Someone with the right admin access can search those events. That is a real record, not a message.

Two honest limits. First, Microsoft says approvals made in the app are stored in the default Dataverse environment, which does not support backups at this time. Admins can set retention rules. Second, regular staff do not see the audit log. They see only the requests they sent or received. A user sees other requests only if they are an approver or a viewer.

So: Teams gives you a stronger record. Email gives you an easier record to read for the people who were on the thread.

Reminders

Email has no built-in reminders. A person has to remember to chase. This is how approvals get lost. Our guide on approvals lost in email covers that problem in more detail.

For Teams Approvals, Microsoft's pages do not describe automatic reminders for requests made in the app. Do not count on them. Test it in your own tenant first.

If you need reminders for sure, the usual route is a Power Automate approval flow with a reminder step. That is a build, not a setting. Our guide "Approval workflow, fixed price" shows how one works.

Mobile

Email works on every phone with no extra steps. That is a real win for email.

Teams has a mobile app. Microsoft says admins can pin the Approvals app to the bottom bar of Teams mobile for users, and it is pinned by default for frontline workers. Test one request on your own phone before you roll it out.

Licensing

Email approvals need nothing extra. If you have email, you can use it.

For Teams Approvals, Microsoft lists these needs for the app: permission to create a Microsoft Dataverse database, an account on the Power Automate site, an admin role in the target environment, and a license for Power Automate, Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365. The same page says a Microsoft Forms license is needed to set up new approval templates.

Microsoft also says the first approval you create starts setting up the approvals solution. In the default environment the database is made for you.

Ask your admin to confirm what your own plan covers. Licensing pages change, and plans differ.

Limits

Teams Approvals has real limits. Microsoft says:

Each team can have at most 400 approval templates, and each template can collect at most 50,000 requests.
The app is not yet released for GCC High and DoD.
If someone deletes the Microsoft Forms file behind a template, the template breaks.
E-signatures need a license from the e-signature company, such as Adobe Sign or DocuSign.

If your approvals run through Power Automate, a flow run lasts up to 30 days. After that, pending steps such as approvals time out. A flow that is not triggered for 90 days might be turned off, unless the owner has a premium license.

Email has no such limits. A message can wait forever. That is both a strength and the cause of the lost-approval problem.

Outside people

Email wins here. You can send an email to anyone. Teams Approvals is built for people in your tenant. Microsoft says Power Automate approvals can go to guest users, but a guest who did not accept the invitation is removed from the approver list. That means a customer or vendor who never joined your Microsoft 365 is a poor fit.

Comparison table

Swipe sideways to see all columns.

Topic	Teams Approvals	Email
Setup	admin and license checks	none
Audit trail	logged in Purview	replies in inboxes
Reminders	none documented	none, manual
Mobile	Teams app	any phone
Outside people	weak, guests must accept	anyone
Order of approvers	you choose	by hand
Hard limits	400 templates, 50,000 requests each	none
Cost	needs a qualifying license	free with mail

Pick Teams Approvals if

You need to prove who approved what, and when.
Your approvers are all inside your company.
You want one list of what is waiting, not scattered threads.
You want approvers to answer in the same place they chat.
You have the license and an admin who can set it up.

Pick email approvals if

The approver is a customer, a vendor or another outside person.
The decision is rare, small or informal.
Nobody on the team uses Teams every day.
You cannot get the license or admin help right now.
You need it working today with no setup.

When neither is enough

If you run many approvals a week, both start to hurt. Email gets lost. The Teams app shows each person the requests they sent or received, but not the order, shipment or case each one belongs to. The next step is a SharePoint list with a Power Automate approval flow. The request, the decision and the date all land on one list. See our guide "Approval workflow, fixed price" for how that looks.

When to get help

You can build all of this yourself in Microsoft 365. If you would rather have it built and tested for your team, I do that. An approval tracker like this is a fixed price: $5,000 for one, built in 2 weeks. See "What a SharePoint tracker costs". Bring one example of the problem to a free call.

Tell me what's still manual

I am Al Davies. I run 250 High Street LLC and build SharePoint trackers and Power Automate flows for operations teams. I work remotely. The first call is free, and I will not try to sell you anything.

See trackers I built: Tools I built

FAQ

Is Teams Approvals free?

It is built into Teams, but Microsoft lists license needs to deploy it, including a license for Power Automate, Microsoft 365 or Dynamics 365. Check your own plan with your admin.

Can an approver answer from their phone?

Teams has a mobile app, and Microsoft says admins can pin Approvals to its bottom bar. Test one request on your phone first.

Does Teams keep a record I can show an auditor?

Microsoft says the app logs events such as approved, rejected and reassigned in the Purview audit log. An admin must search it. Approvals are stored in the default Dataverse environment, which has no backups at this time.

Can I send a Teams approval to a customer?

Only if they are a guest in your Microsoft 365 and have accepted the invitation. Otherwise, use email.

Can I use both?

Yes. Many teams use Teams for inside requests and email for outside ones. Write down which one is the default so people do not guess.