Microsoft Teams macOS Background Agent Persists After Uninstallation

Platform: macOS Tahoe 26.3.2
Application: Microsoft Teams for macOS
Status: Background agent disabled; stale system registration remains**

Issue type:** Application uninstallation / Background process management Platform: macOS Tahoe 26.3.2 Application: Microsoft Teams for macOS Status: Background agent disabled; stale system registration remains

Summary

After uninstalling Microsoft Teams, its background agent continued running on macOS. The agent was not immediately apparent from the normal application interface and persisted even though the main Teams application had been removed.

The issue was discovered while troubleshooting an unrelated Bluetooth audio problem. Investigation revealed that the Teams agent had been running independently of the main application and could restart after its process was manually terminated.

Technical findings

The following diagnostics identified the problem:

• Process inspection: pgrep and ps identified a process associated with com.microsoft.teams2.agent.
• Process supervision: The agent was managed by macOS launchd through Apple's Service Management framework. Its configuration included KeepAlive and RunAtLoad properties, consistent with automatic launch and restart behavior.
• Executable location: Process inspection with lsof showed that the agent executable was running from the Microsoft Teams application bundle inside the macOS Trash.
• Application removal: The normal Teams application location no longer existed, and a Spotlight search did not locate an installed Teams application matching its bundle identifier.
• Background-task registration: sfltool dumpbtm continued to list the agent under the identifier 8.com.microsoft.teams2.agent, associated with the parent application identifier 2.com.microsoft.teams2.
• Restart behavior: Manually terminating the process caused it to restart, demonstrating that killing the process alone was insufficient.
• Final verification: After disabling the service using launchctl and removing the trashed application, process checks returned no matching agent process. The launch service reported disabled. However, macOS's Background Task Management database still retained an entry marking the agent as enabled.

Expected behavior

Uninstalling Microsoft Teams should stop its background processes and unregister associated launch agents. If any background components must remain, users should receive clear information about their purpose and a straightforward way to disable or remove them.

Requested investigation

Please investigate:

1. Why the Teams background agent remained registered and executable after the application was uninstalled.
2. Why the agent restarted after its process was manually terminated.
3. Why the Background Task Management database retained an enabled registration after the agent was disabled and its application bundle was removed.
4. Whether the uninstallation process should explicitly unregister the agent through Apple's Service Management APIs.
5. Whether this behavior is expected and whether a documented cleanup procedure is available.

This report describes observed process and service-management behavior. It does not claim that the agent accessed the microphone, collected data, or engaged in malicious activity.

Impact: The behavior reduced confidence in whether uninstalling the application fully removed its background components and made it necessary to use Terminal diagnostics to identify and disable the remaining service.Issue type: Application uninstallation / Background process management