A Technical Guide to Resolving Microsoft Teams Performance Issues (2026 Edition)
As of 2026, Microsoft Teams has evolved into a deeply integrated collaboration platform, powered by advanced AI and richer media experiences. This evolution, however, can place significant demands on client hardware and network infrastructure, leading to performance degradation. This guide provides a comprehensive set of troubleshooting steps for IT professionals and power users to diagnose and resolve common slowness issues with the modern Teams client.
Tier 1: Initial Client-Side Diagnostics
These initial steps can resolve a majority of user-reported performance problems and should be the first line of defense. They focus on common issues related to the client application's state and local environment.
- Perform a Full Restart: Completely quit the Teams application (right-click the icon in the system tray and select "Quit") and restart it. If issues persist, restart the entire computer to clear any residual processes and memory conflicts.
- Check for Updates: Navigate to Settings > About Teams and manually check for updates. Microsoft frequently releases performance patches, and running an outdated version is a common cause of lag and instability.
- Clear the Teams Cache: The modern Teams client still relies on a local cache that can become corrupted or bloated. To clear it, close Teams completely and navigate to the
%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Packages\MSTeams_8wekyb3d8bbwe\LocalCachedirectory. Delete the contents of this folder. The path may vary slightly with future OS versions.
Tier 2: Feature and Resource Optimization
By 2026, Teams includes numerous background processes that can be resource-intensive. Disabling non-essential features can significantly improve performance on systems with limited resources.
Disable High-Impact Features:
- AI and Copilot Features: In Teams settings, navigate to the "Copilot & AI" section. Consider disabling features like "Proactive meeting summaries" or "Continuous background transcription" if they are not critical to the user's workflow.
- GPU Hardware Acceleration: While typically beneficial, this can cause issues with specific driver versions. Go to Settings > General and toggle "Disable GPU hardware acceleration" to test if it resolves screen tearing, freezing, or high GPU usage.
- Video Effects and Filters: Disable all background blurs, custom backgrounds, and animated avatars during calls. These effects, especially the newer high-fidelity 3D filters, consume substantial CPU and GPU power.
- Read Receipts: For users in many large teams and channels, disabling read receipts can reduce background processing load. This is found under Settings > Privacy.
Tier 3: Network and Administrative Troubleshooting
If client-side fixes are ineffective, the issue may lie with the network or tenant-level configurations. These steps are typically performed by IT administrators.
- Analyze Network Quality in Teams Admin Center: Use the Call Quality Dashboard (CQD) in the Teams Admin Center to analyze user call data. Look for high jitter, packet loss, or latency, which directly impact real-time media performance.
- Verify Firewall and QoS Policies: Ensure that all required Microsoft 365 URLs and IP address ranges are properly whitelisted and excluded from deep packet inspection on your firewall or proxy. Confirm that Quality of Service (QoS) policies are correctly implemented to prioritize Teams media traffic on your corporate network.
- Review App Policies: Unused or misbehaving third-party apps and integrations can slow down the client. From the Teams Admin Center, review the installed apps for the affected user and consider creating policies to block or limit non-essential applications.
- Perform a Clean Reinstallation: As a final resort, completely uninstall the Microsoft Teams client and any related components. After a system reboot, download and install the latest version from the official Microsoft source. This ensures no corrupted files or settings remain.