“Need admin approval”: Microsoft sign-in blocked by your organization

Why do I see “Need admin approval”?#

With work or school accounts, your organization decides which apps can access mail. Many companies let only administrators give consent, or only to apps from Microsoft-verified publishers. In these cases Microsoft’s page stops there and Mailamber shows “Sign-in failed or was cancelled. Try again.”

It has nothing to do with your password or with Mailamber: it’s a security setting of your Microsoft 365 tenant.

What does the administrator need to do?#

The Microsoft 365 administrator can grant consent for the whole organization. In short, following Microsoft’s official guide Grant tenant-wide admin consent to an application:

1. sign in to the Microsoft Entra admin center with a suitable role (for example Cloud Application Administrator);
2. open Entra ID → Enterprise apps → All applications and search for Mailamber (it appears after a user’s first sign-in attempt);
3. under Permissions, review the requested permissions — mailbox access over IMAP, sending over SMTP, offline access, email profile — and choose Grant admin consent.

Alternatively, they can set up the admin consent request workflow, so users can ask for approval directly from Microsoft’s page.

Can I get around the block?#

No, and it isn’t worth trying: your organization’s rules apply to other email programs too. If the administrator doesn’t approve external apps, use your mailbox from the client your company provides. With a personal account (Outlook.com, Hotmail, Live), no approval is needed.

Sign-in worked but no mail arrives: what should I check?#

Some organizations disable IMAP or authenticated SMTP for mailboxes. In that case the Microsoft sign-in succeeds but the connection to the mail server is refused. Ask your administrator to check that IMAP and SMTP AUTH are enabled for your mailbox in the Exchange admin center.