Microsoft Teams Overview: Public and Private Teams and Channels

Overview

Microsoft Teams is a hub for collaboration, bringing together groups of people to streamline communication and get work done efficiently. Whether you're tackling dynamic, project-based tasks—like launching a product—or focusing on ongoing efforts that reflect your organization's structure, such as departments or office locations, Teams is a great tool.
 

Understanding Teams and Channels

Teams

Teams are groups of people, content, and tools organized around specific projects or goals.

• Privacy Settings:
  • Private Teams (Recommended): Restricted to invited users for security and sensitive information.
  • Public Teams: Open to anyone in the organization (up to 10,000 members) and should only be used when sensitive information is not shared.

Channels

Channels are the backbone of collaboration within a team, designed to keep conversations and work organized around specific topics, projects, or disciplines. Shared files in a channel are accessible via the Files tab and are stored securely in SharePoint. Learn more about how SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business integrate with Teams here.

Types of channels:

• Standard channels: Open to all team members, enabling inclusive conversations.
• Private channels: Limited to a select group within the team for more focused collaboration.

For Tips on creating and managing Teams and Channels, watch this TechTip: Guidance for Creating Teams & Channels including Private Channels in Microsoft Teams (21:08 min)

Membership, Roles, and Settings in Microsoft Teams

Team Membership

When Teams is activated across your organization, team owners can easily invite colleagues by searching for their names. Team owners can also create a team based on an existing Microsoft 365 group, with changes to group membership automatically syncing with the team in Teams.
 

Team Roles

There are two main roles in Teams:

• Team owner(s)
  • Creates the team and manages the settings, membership, and invitations. 
  • Can assign other members as co-owners at any time, allowing shared management responsibilities.
  • Has default moderator capabilities for channels.
• Team members
  • Invited by the owner to join the team and participate in conversations and activities.
  • Can be granted moderator rights to manage channel discussions.

Additionally, moderators (owners or designated members) can manage channel conversations, start new posts, and control reply permissions. Owners can assign moderators, and moderators can add or remove others within their channel. Learn more about managing channel moderation here.

Note: When a new team owner is added, they are also added as a team member unless the team was created in the Teams admin center or linked to an existing Microsoft 365 group.
 

Team Membership

• Team owners can invite colleagues by searching for their names or link Teams to an existing Microsoft 365 group, syncing membership automatically.
   

Team Settings

Team owners can customize team-wide settings, such as:

• Adding a team picture.
• Setting permissions for creating standard and private channels, adding tabs and connectors, and enabling @mentions for the team or channel.
• Managing fun features like GIFs, stickers, and memes.

When you create a new team or private channel in Microsoft Teams, a corresponding SharePoint site is automatically generated. To edit the site description or classification for this team site, go to the corresponding channel’s settings in Microsoft Teams.

How to Edit Teams Privacy Settings

• To change the privacy settings for an existing Team, select the ellipsis (...) next to the team's name.

 

• Select Edit team in the dropdown.

 

• Under the Privacy dropdown, choose either Private or Public.
  • Private: All Teams handling sensitive documents or information to ensure secure access should be set to private.
  • Public: Suitable for teams where sensitive information won’t be shared, allowing broader access within the organization.

 

Private Channels in Microsoft Teams

Private channels create secure spaces for focused collaboration within a team. Only added members can access conversations and files, making them ideal for sensitive discussions or project-specific work. A private channel is useful in these scenarios:

• A group of people in a team who want a focused space to collaborate without having to create a separate team.
• A subset of people in a team who want a private channel to discuss sensitive information, such as budgets, resourcing, or strategic positioning.

Once a private channel is created, it's linked to the parent team and can't be moved to a different team. Additionally, private channels can't be converted to standard channels and vice versa.

Private Channel Ownership and Permissions

• Who Can Create: By default, team owners and members can create private channels, though this can be restricted at the team or organization level. Guests cannot create private channels.
• Ownership: The person who creates a private channel becomes its owner and manages its membership. Owners can add any team member, including guests, and members gain access to all past and current conversations. Team owners can view the names of all private channels in the team and delete private channels. Team owners cannot access files, conversations, or member lists in private channels unless they are members of those channels.
   

Adding and Removing Owners and Members

• A private channel owner can't be removed through the Teams client if they are the last owner of one or more private channels.
• If a private channel owner leaves your organization or if they are removed from the Microsoft 365 Group associated with the team, a member of the private channel is automatically promoted to be the private channel owner.
• If a team member leaves or is removed from a team, that user will also leave or be removed from all private channels in the team. If the user is added back to the team, they must be added back to the private channels in the team.

Customizing Channel Settings

Private channels have independent settings from their parent team. Owners can:

• Manage members, including adding or removing them.
• Adjust settings for tabs, @mentions, and more.
• Customize settings after the channel inherits initial configurations from the parent team.

To update settings, private channel owners can click Manage channel and use the Members and Settings tabs to make changes.

Private channel owner and member actions

The following table outlines what actions owners, members, and guests can do in private channels.