Many times organization users remain signed in and leave their workspace open and which can be dangerous sometime as most of your valuable information resides in your Office 365 account (i.e. emails, files, events, videos, chat history and a lot more). Well now you can control this as an IT administrator. Office 365 has introduced a wonderful feature called Ideal session sign-out.
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Here are steps to configure it
Step 1: Navigate to your SharePoint Online Admin center
Go to https://admin.microsoft.com/AdminPortal and navigate to SharePoint Admin center
Click on Try it now for new Admin center
Step 2: Configure idle session sign-outs
From your new Admin center, click Access Control from Side Navigation
Select Idle session sign-out option from your Access control screen
Enable sign out inactive users automatically
As soon as you enable the option, you will see two more settings to configure:
Sign out users after
This means, if the user is inactive after the configured value here, he / she will be signed out automatically
Give users this much notice before signing them out
That means before the given time of sign out, user will start seeing below popup and they still have option to remain signed in
Save your settings and you are done!
Frequently asked questions
Q: What are the default sign-out values for Office 365
A: Here is a table showing default timeouts.
Service | Timeout after |
---|---|
Office 365 Admin center | 8 hours. |
SharePoint Online | 5 days of inactivity as long as the users chooses Keep me signed in. If the user accesses SharePoint Online again after 24 or more hours have passed from the previous sign-in, the timeout value is reset to 5 days. |
Outlook Web App | 6 hours. |
Q: How long we have to wait for the above settings to get effected?
A: Microsoft says it takes around 15 minutes but we had to wait a big longer so please give it a longer time (i.e. nearly 8-10 hours). You can however try after 15 minutes and please be aware that it will only work for new sign-ins and not already signed in sessions.
Q: Does the policy effect existing signed in sessions?
A: No, only new sign-ins
Q: Is it possible to hide keep me signed in option while logging in?
A: Yes, admins can hide this option from admin center.
Note: This setting will only work when user doesn't select to stay signed in