Chat, Channels and Private Channels in Teams

Microsoft Teams has multiple ways of managing conversations and information. This article will compare chat, channels and private channels. Everyone has access to chat. When a person is added to a team they will have access to channels and private channels.

Chat

Chat is useful for short-lived communications. Read our Group Chat article for details on group chat.

• You can chat with anyone with an Evergreen account.
• Group chats can be named and organized.
• Files uploaded to a chat are stored in the OneDrive of the member who uploaded files.
• There are limited options to add apps to a chat.

Channels

When a team is created it corresponds to a Microsoft 365 group, Outlook calendar, email, and Sharepoint site for file storage. Apps such as Planner and Forms are only available with a group and cannot be used in a private chat or private channel.

• Each team can have multiple channels.
• Each person can belong to multiple teams.
• All members of a team can see all channels on a team.
• Users can hide channels infrequently used channels.
• Each channel has a Posts tab for conversations.
  • Only members of a team can see posts.
• Files uploaded to a channel are added to the channel SharePoint storage.
  • By default all members of a team will have read and write access.
  • Each channel has a folder in the Documents folder of the corresponding SharePoint site.
• There are more options to add additional app tabs to a channel.

Private Channels

A Team can also have private channels that are limited to specific users of a team. We recommend to use chats vs. creating private channels. For more details, Microsoft has an article on Private Channels.

• Each team can only have 30 private channels.
• Each private channel has its own SharePoint site.
• Some apps can be added to private channels, but this is limited.
  • E.g. You cannot add tabs for Planner and Forms to a private channel.
• Private channels do not have a Microsoft 365 group like a Team.