Support for Private Channels

Looking for the ability to create a channel that only channel members can see. Private channels are available in slack. There is an admin for private channels who is the creator, and they are the ones who add/remove users.

Five types of public/privacy that is being asked for by users:

- Public-Open (visible anywhere including outside the org and anyone can join)
- Public-Invitation (visible anywhere including outside the org, must be invited)
- Company-Open (only visible inside the org and anyone in the org can join; outside the org must be invited)
- Company-Invitation (only visible inside the org, must be invited)
- Secret (invisible to everyone except existing members, must be invited)

11,155 votes

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We’ll send you updates on this idea

Angela Sze shared this idea · November 01, 2016 · Flag idea as inappropriate… · Admin →

working on it ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · August 06, 2018

This feature is still actively being worked upon. I’ll let you know as we get closer to release.
-Warren

Show previous admin responses (12)

working on it ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · June 01, 2018

This feature request is still in the works. No additional details to share at this time.
But the team is hard at work to ensure it is implemented in a fashion that will meet your expectations.

-Warren

working on it ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · March 20, 2018

This feature request is still in the works.

No big updates to share, but the feedback has been a huge help. So thank you all once again. As more details emerge from the feature team on the work being done, I will be sure to share it with you here.

We understand how important this ask is to you all and we are working to ensure it is implemented in a fashion that will meet your expectations.

-Warren

working on it ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · February 06, 2018

The survey is now closed. We had an amazing response, so thank you all very much!

Please know our surveys are used to help gauge multiple things. Don’t read into it as a roadmap of what is to come.

We will review all the feedback and are reading the comments you post as well. All your feedback is appreciated and goes through consideration.

As we progress on the feature request I will provide more updates.

Thank you!
-Warren

needs your feedback ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · February 05, 2018

We are still working on this item but would like some feedback from you!

This survey would provide us with valuable insight and help drive several requests. It should only take a couple minutes to quickly fill out.
https://microsoft.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_cGv5UzDjoR5idfL

We’re still aiming for early this calendar year (2018) if development and testing go well.

Thank you!
-Warren

working on it ·

AdminWarren (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · January 23, 2018

This is still actively being worked upon. We’re still aiming for early this calendar year (2018) if development and testing go well.

I hope to have more details to share soon.

-Warren

working on it ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · November 29, 2017

Its been a while since my last update, so wanted to check in and let you know that this is well under way. We’re aiming for early next calendar year (2018) if development and testing go well. I’ll ping you again with a more exact ETA after the new year.

Meanwhile, feel free to ping me on Twitter at @skprufo if you have any questions!

Sincerely,
Suphatra

working on it ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · October 18, 2017

Hi everyone, quick update for you on this feature.

We’ve got lots of resources on this and we’re actively working on it. This is a top priority feature.

I haven’t gotten a firm ETA from the team but I can say this won’t hit in the next month or so. Its a complicated feature, so it will take longer than that. I’ll let you know once I get a general date from them.

Thanks for your feedback, patience, and as always, thank you for your support of Teams.

Sincerely,
Suphatra

Questions? Tweet me at @skprufo.

working on it ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · September 07, 2017

Hi everyone! Hope you’re having a great September.

I’m really excited to share with you the progress on this feature. To recap, we originally tried to resolve for this request by giving you Private Teams, but your feedback showed us that this was not the right solution. So we’ve gone back to the drawing board and we are in active development of private channels.

This is how we view a private channel: it will be a new channel type that allows users to create a channel with a different user roster than the parent team, that is only visible to those members. As the name implies, it is meant for sensitive discussions or for working with sub-teams.

As it turns out, private channels is a very complicated feature to deploy, because there are several dependencies external to Teams. I will keep you updated as we progress, and if you have any questions, please always feel welcome to email me directly at sparavi @ Microsoft (dot) com.

Thanks for your support of teams, and this great idea!

Sincerely,
Suphatra

under review ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · June 15, 2017

Hiya again folks.

I just wanted to write and let you know that I updated the idea to better reflect the vibrant discussion in the community about exactly what a private channel means. It looks like there are five definitions — shout out to user John Black who wrote it out so elegantly. I’ve included that description in the original idea.

We still have this item under review, and I’m personally interested in seeing if this request is further changed when we release guest access (coming super soon!) this summer. Stay tuned, stay cool, and as always, thanks for your support of Teams.

Sincerely,
Suphatra

under review ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · April 25, 2017

Hi everyone,

So a little bit of context for everyone who newly voted for this feature.

When you first asked for “Private Channels” we believed this could be solved by the new feature that we recently rolled out — the ability to create either Public or Private teams. Hence, the status on this item was “Working on it!”

However, the strong feedback from the community has been that this does not solve your original problem. So, we’re pulling this into review and evaluating ways we can implement this. It’s not an easy fix, so we’ll need some time. I’ll make sure to update you along the way.

Thanks and please continue to give us your great feedback. Your voice helps guide this product in the right direction!

Sincerely,
Suphatra

try this instead ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · March 23, 2017

We have enabled a new feature — Private and Public Teams. This allows you to make a team either public (anyone can join) or private (people can only be invited into the team).

This new feature should help many of you requesting private channels.

To make an existing team private or public, just click on the ellipses next to the team name and choose “Edit team”.

Thanks,
Suphatra

working on it ·

AdminSuphatra (Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Teams) responded · February 08, 2017

This is on its way.
Stay tuned for more updates as this moves along!
And if you need anything else, just ping me on Twitter or email.

Suphatra
Microsoft Teams

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Mergim Esati commented · August 17, 2018 10:39 · Flag as inappropriate

This is bloody mandatory to us. We have more than 4000 users, we'd appreciate having this feature as soon as possible.
Anonymous commented · August 15, 2018 12:40 · Flag as inappropriate

Our Development team is migrating to Teams from Hipchat and they are facing multiple challenges as individual chats have a limit of 20 participants. They really need Private Chats.
Anonymous commented · August 13, 2018 23:45 · Flag as inappropriate

I need it also ASAP.
I have a team, where you can find the devs and the stakeholders of that project. I want to create a private channel within this group, in order to be able to store all the outputs of our Retro sessions.
Vittorio D'Alessandro commented · August 11, 2018 09:34 · Flag as inappropriate

Teams is a great tool, i use Slack instead having office 365 just for not having this feature. Update ASAP!
Anonymous commented · August 10, 2018 02:45 · Flag as inappropriate

When can we expect this feature rollout?
Anonymous commented · August 09, 2018 09:35 · Flag as inappropriate

It's been in the works for well over 365 days now... Please work faster. Document and channel permissions is definitely needed for a lot of companies!
Tony commented · August 09, 2018 07:06 · Flag as inappropriate

awesome. If you want to see how this feature will replace my One Note UI, please reach out to me
Anonymous commented · August 08, 2018 17:55 · Flag as inappropriate

Thanks Warren for the update
Anthony Marc commented · August 08, 2018 13:07 · Flag as inappropriate

Is there an ETA on when this will be released? When Microsoft visited my organization earlier this year we were told it was in the works for a 2018 release. We were actually told it would be a Q2 thing, but clearly excluding members of the Team from specific Channels is not yet available. This is impacting adoption in my organization and it is very much looked forward to. Any update on release ETA would be greatly appreciated.
Ben commented · August 07, 2018 14:16 · Flag as inappropriate

Rather than adding bots and integrations this feature needs to be nailed, in my personal view this and the external access were the two main reason for not recommending this to our customers, as I do not want my customers who are using Slack to move and suffer a "downgrade"

Could you please give us a date for release? your partners and users have constantly requested this. In fact it is the most requested feature by a country mile
Anonymous commented · August 06, 2018 13:28 · Flag as inappropriate

Teams could be great with this feature. It has been requested by many since 2016. Will we ever see it? If there are fundamental problems please tell us. It is an essential feature for using Teams as central communication and file access tool. Differentiated permissions as in traditional SharePoint are important too.
Anonymous commented · August 06, 2018 11:18 · Flag as inappropriate

Wasn't this supposed to be launched during first quarter if 2018? What happened?
Anonymous commented · August 06, 2018 00:31 · Flag as inappropriate

This would be very good. At the moment we have problems in bigger Teams because we can not create private channels.
Luke Anderson commented · August 03, 2018 18:46 · Flag as inappropriate

Another critical feature for our company. Need to see fewer "Working on its" in the less requested features and more speed/clarity on the top 3
Scott Pavkovich commented · August 03, 2018 14:52 · Flag as inappropriate

This would be very helpful for my org.
Anonymous commented · August 03, 2018 06:43 · Flag as inappropriate

I figured out a workaround.
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/microsoft-teams-restricting-channel-permissions-levar-chan-williams/
Anonymous commented · August 03, 2018 02:57 · Flag as inappropriate

Needs to happen to take Teams to the next level. We can't take them beyond the small team realm until it does.
Leon commented · August 03, 2018 02:33 · Flag as inappropriate

What is the latest, such an important feature for our organisation.
Adam Raymond commented · August 02, 2018 15:25 · Flag as inappropriate

Much needed. We can’t move off of Slack without it. We’d have to set up 3 or more private teams per actual team in order to use it as it is now, which is confusing and not feasible.
Brian commented · August 02, 2018 14:52 · Flag as inappropriate

An absolute need