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Email input limited to internal addresses

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Posted on by Phil-Smith

I have a flow that was working fine until recently. Now the email input box only accepts email addresses from our organization.

The flow does the following:

- User selects a file/folder in their site, and specifies an email address (or set of email addresses)

- Flow copies the selected folder or file from the user's site, to an "external share" site

- Flow then shares the copied file/folder with the specified email address(es).

I use this flow in order to keep all files/folders that have been shared with external users in one place. And also ensure that external users only see the version of the file(s) that was shared with them (i.e. the copied version), and not any subsequent changes. This also allows me to keep my users' libraries locked down and only permit sharing of files/folders with external users to occur in the "external share" library.

So after that long preamble, my problem is this. Fairly recently the email input box for this flow (where the user specifies the email(s) to share with), no longer permits any external email address to be entered. It will instead only accept internal organization email addresses.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

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Building flows

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tom_riha 10,185 Most Valuable Professional on at

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Hello @Phil-Smith

if you switch to the 'Dynamic content' input it should allow you to enter even external email address. Or you can add a 'Compose' action before the email, store the external email in that 'Compose' and then use its output as the email recipient.

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Phil-Smith 17 on at

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I'm not sure how to accomplish that.

The input for the email is actually in the "For a selected file" action. I could make it a text input but them i'm going to need to validate it, and I expect a lot of syntax problems if people try to send to share with multiple emails.

My flow also doesn't end with a compose email action. It ends with a "Grant Access to an item of folder" action.

What is odd is this exact flow worked for over a year and only recently stopped working.

Perhaps the attached photos will help explain what is occurring. When typing an email into the "email for share" box, if an email is displayed in the "suggested people" box below (all internal users), then you can click on it and then click "run flow". If no "suggested people" show up, then clicking the run flow button yields the response that an email is required.

Previously, I could type any email address into that email box, then hit TAB and the email would be validated/recognized by sharepoint.

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tom_riha 10,185 Most Valuable Professional on at

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I never noticed that you could use even external addresses in that selection box. If it worked and it doesn't work now then there's no workaround, I guess you'll have to use a text input field to allow users to enter external emails, exactly as you said.

Edit: and I can't really imagine how it would be technically possible to validate external email addresses in that field. The field is connected to your tenant's azure ad, it can't possibly recognize any email that isn't there.

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Phil-Smith 17 on at

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Validate was probably the wrong word.

When I hit tab it used to converts the string of characters that were the email address into a single email address 'block'. Much the same way outlook will do that when you type an email into the 'to' box and hit tab.

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DanEriksen 18 on at

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Did you find a way out of this @Phil-Smith? I have the exact same issue with the "when a new email arrives" options. They used to accept external email addresses in the 'From' field until very recently, but now only accepts 'Suggested people. Just dosen't make sense. Why would you restrict flows to internal senders and recipients only?

If anyone has any tips on how to solve this that would be much appreciated.

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Phil-Smith 17 on at

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Unfortunately I haven't found any solution other than changing my input from "email" type to "text" type.

I expect a lot of syntax errors when it comes to multiple emails being entered, so this is not ideal.

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VictorIvanidze 13,073 on at

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Have a look at DWC_NZ comment here:
https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Building-Flows/Flow-not-retaining-non-exchange-email-address-set-as-requirement/m-p/1392445#M156950

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Phil-Smith 17 on at

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@DanEriksen
All of a sudden the "email" type input now accepts external email addresses again. Must have been an update.

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DanEriksen 18 on at

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@Phil-Smith Where were you able to do that? I still can't get this to work in the web app.

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Phil-Smith 17 on at

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We're dealing with slightly different things.

I was dealing with an "email" input type to the sharepoint "for a selected file" action. You can see my screenshots above. It was accepting external email addresses, then it stopped accepting external email addresses, and now it is again accepting external email addresses.

My code didn't change at all. Microsoft much have changed the backend.

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