Open Teams Links directly in the App

When opening Microsoft Teams Links (starting with https://teams.microsoft.com) before being redirected to the Microsoft Teams App/ Client then will be opened in the browser and you might get a left-over window opened in the browser.

I present here a way to workaround this issue.

   

Replace https://teams.microsoft.com by msteams:

Instead of opening a teams link, you can pass the link directly to the Teams application using the msteams protocol.

So you could directly change the Teams http link to a msteams: link e.g. in your application like vba or AutoHotkey.

This is the code I use in vba:

sLink = Replace(sLink, "https://teams.microsoft.com", "msteams:")

In AutoHotkey:

sLink := StrReplace(sLink,"https://teams.microsoft.com","msteams:")

Redirect Teams link

I have Chrome set as my default browser.

With Chrome you can use this Redirector extension.

Whitelist msteams protocol

You might need to add the msteams: protocol to your browser Url whitelist in order not to be prompted while opening msteams: link as shown below.

For Chrome it looks like this:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\URLWhitelist]
"1"="msteams://*"

Uservoices

These are only workarounds, unfortunately. And it would be much better if Microsoft Teams were handling this properly out of the box.

Normally if I have the Teams App installed I always want to open links in the App. (I can understand still till Teams does not offer a proper multiple window feature that it might not be so easy.)

So check for uservoices

Please vote for this one already with >5000 votes:

This one is also relevant about deep links: https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/39107335-deep-link-to-chat-shall-open-directly-in-teams-app