Microsoft Teams has such confusing names. Now, it's unified app for work, personal, & education

Microsoft Teams has been one of, if not the most team collaboration apps around, especially since the world has moved to the hybrid, home-office system.

Now, the Redmond company is tying the service into one unified app, whether it’s for work, personal, or educational accounts.

The unified Microsoft Teams app is now available on Windows 10, 11, and macOS. Once updated, you can easily switch between your personal, work, and education accounts within a single app, contrary to having separate applications or needing to log in and out of different accounts that we currently do.

“By signing into Teams with a personal email address or phone number, you can connect and collaborate with anyone, anytime — for free,” says Microsoft’s Amit Fulay in the announcement.

“To add or access additional accounts, select your profile picture in the upper right corner when signed into Teams. Work, personal, and education accounts will open in side-by-side windows from a single Teams app,” the company explains.

The double-app situation has been confusing users for quite some time. Before today’s update, there used to be a thing called Microsoft Teams (free) and Teams (work or school), which (honestly) ruins the whole experience.

Microsoft has a well-documented past of confusing names. There’s no secret about that. Before the company unified all AI-related services into “Copilot,” there was a “Bing AI Chat” and a separate Copilot service for Windows 11 & 10. It also had a Bing Image Creator before Microsoft renamed it to “Image Creator from Designer.”

You can download Microsoft Teams online, or if you have one already, the integration will come automatically as a part of the update cycle.