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Teams SMS – Is there a supported way to open an SMS chat via deep link / URL from an external app?

Lupea, Catalin 60 Reputation points
2025-12-11T13:07:44.3+00:00

Hi,

This is a follow-up to these two previous questions:

https://v4.hkg1.meaqua.org/en-us/answers/questions/5642172/teams-sms-different-name-display-between-calls-his

From those answers and the related documentation, we understand that:

Native Teams SMS chats (with Microsoft Calling Plan numbers / A2P 10DLC) are plain-text only and do not support apps, bots, or message extensions.

SMS conversations are not exposed in Microsoft Graph as standard /chats and /messages resources.

There is currently no app / bot / message extension entry point into SMS chats, and this is by design.

We are now investigating a narrower scenario and would like to confirm our understanding.

Scenario

We have an internal line-of-business web application that displays contact details, including a North American mobile phone number.

The desired user experience is:

User opens the web app’s “Person” page.

Next to a North American mobile number, there is a “Message via Teams (SMS)” button.

When the user clicks that button, the web app launches Microsoft Teams (desktop or web) via a URL / deep link.

Teams opens a native SMS chat to that phone number, so the user can immediately type and send an SMS message.

Important constraints:

We do not need to read or modify SMS content programmatically.

We only want to invoke the Teams UI in “SMS chat” mode targeting a given phone number.

Questions

Question 1: Is there any supported and documented URI scheme or deep link (for example, an https://teams.microsoft.com/... or msteams: URL) that can open a Teams SMS chat for a given phone number, similar to how https://teams.microsoft.com/l/chat/0/0?... opens a normal Teams chat with users (UPNs)?

For example, the URL https://teams.microsoft.com/l/call/0/0?users=4:<E.164> is documented to start a PSTN call.

Question 2: If the answer is no, is there any recommended workaround, for example a way to deep link into the “new SMS chat” experience with the phone number pre-filled in the “To:” field, or is this also not supported?

Question 3: From a design and roadmap perspective, can we safely assume that opening a native Teams SMS chat programmatically (via deep link or URL) is not supported, and that there is currently no documented workaround to achieve this behavior, so that we can close our investigation on this scenario?

Based on the previous answers, we are expecting that this cannot be implemented with native Teams SMS today, but we wanted to double-check explicitly in case there is a specific deep link or pattern we have missed, or any officially recommended alternative.

Thank you in advance for your clarification.

Microsoft Teams | Development
Microsoft Teams | Development
Building, integrating, or customizing apps and workflows within Microsoft Teams using developer tools and APIs
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Answer accepted by question author
  1. Teddie-D 9,355 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator
    2025-12-12T00:35:37.8166667+00:00

    Hi @Lupea, Catalin 

    Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

    Here is some information that may help clarify your questions: 

    Microsoft’s deep‑link documentation defines all supported Teams link types, and SMS is not included. The published APIs and deep‑link models only support navigation to:
    -Chats with users. 
    -VoIP/PSTN calls. 
    -Tabs, apps, channels, workflows and meeting surfaces. 
    -References:

    Because of this, there is no supported way to deep link into an SMS chat in Teams.
    -The SMS chat interface cannot be opened through a deep link.
    -The compose box cannot be pre‑populated with a phone number. 
    -The Start SMS chat experience cannot be triggered programmatically.  
    These limitations seem to be intentional. SMS in Teams is not part of the standard Teams chat model and is not backed by Microsoft Graph, and therefore cannot be accessed via Graph APIs or Teams extensibility points. It does not support apps, bots, message extensions, or compose extensions, so none of the existing chat‑related deep link patterns apply to SMS. 

    There are also no documented workarounds. Microsoft has not published any guidance, preview features, or roadmap items indicating future support for SMS deep links, Graph APIs, automation, or pre‑filling the “To:” or message fields. The current product design isolates SMS from Teams extensibility points, and nothing in the documentation suggests that this will change. 

    Teams does not provide any supported mechanism to open, pre‑populate, or deep link into an SMS chat, and this scenario is not currently supported by the platform. 

    I hope this information is helpful. 

    If the answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and kindly upvote it. If you have extra questions about this answer, please click "Comment".    

    Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread. 

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  1. Q&A Assist
    2025-12-11T13:08:02.1366667+00:00
    AI generated content. This question contains an answer created with AI from Q&A Assist. Learn more

    Currently, there is no supported way to open a native SMS chat in Microsoft Teams via a deep link or URL from an external app. The documentation indicates that SMS conversations in Teams are plain-text only and do not support apps, bots, or message extensions. Additionally, SMS chats are not exposed in Microsoft Graph, meaning there is no entry point for apps or bots to interact with SMS chats programmatically.

    Given these constraints, you can safely assume that:

    1. Opening a native Teams SMS chat programmatically via deep link or URL is not supported.
    2. There is no documented workaround to achieve this behavior, which means your investigation on this scenario can be closed.

    As of now, there is no specific deep link or pattern that would allow you to pre-fill the "To:" field in a new SMS chat within Teams.

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