Support for Private Channels
Private channels enable focused private collaboration among a subset of your team. You can find detailed information on the capabilities and management of the private channels feature here - https://docs.microsoft.com/MicrosoftTeams/private-channels. Note: Work to release for the government clouds is in progress.
There are four other types of channel functionality on our backlog that we will continue to track – feel free to upvote and/or comment on the items listed next to each:
- Channel only members: to enable collaboration with people outside the team in a specific channel, without granting them access to the team itself. The channel member could be someone in your organization, or external to your organization (guest). https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/31374577
- Shared channels within an organization: allow people in different teams to collaborate on a shared project or v-team in the context of their own teams. A channel can be shared across teams in the same organization https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18615565
- Shared channels across organizations: allow people in an organization other than yours to collaborate on a shared project or v-team. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/32987917
- Public channels: to provide an outbound communication window for a team to engage with everyone in an organization. These channels are accessible to everyone in their tenant, without needing to join. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/34154851

Private channels enable focused private collaboration among a subset of your team. We are super excited to share that this feature is fully rolled out to the public ring. You can find detailed information on the capabilities and management of the private channels feature here – https://docs.microsoft.com/MicrosoftTeams/private-channels.
There are four other types of channel functionality on our backlog – feel free to upvote and/or comment on the UV items listed next to each:
- Channel only members: to enable collaboration with people outside the team in a specific channel, without granting them access to the team itself. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/31374577
- Shared channels within an organization: allow people in different teams to collaborate on a shared project or v-team in the context of their own teams. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/18615565
- Shared channels across organizations: allow people in an organization other than yours to collaborate on a shared project or v-team. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/32987917
- Public channels: to provide an outbound communication window for a team to engage with everyone in an organization. These channels are accessible to everyone in their tenant, without needing to join. https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/34154851
Thanks – and we hope you love your Private channels experience!
~ Alex & the Teams team
2091 comments
Comments are closed-
Stephen Steiner commented
I'd love to be able to @channel or @team in addition to specific people for meeting invites.
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JJ Gunn commented
This shouldn't be a huge deal. When someone creates a channel under the team, simply ask to add entire team or select members only. Just like Slack. Resolved!
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Ivanmor commented
Cant wait for this - in a web world - we have external people / employees or contractors and we need them to be seperate! Thanks!
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Antony commented
Me and a colleague were just chatting about the need for this very thing. Great to see that so many people have requested and that its currently under review.
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Stavros Calimoso commented
We need this!
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Anonymous commented
Here at coca cola, this would add a lot of value to our day to day.
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Charles Breland commented
Here at Coca-Cola we think that would be a very valuable feature.
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Stephen commented
Allow individual channels to be made invite-only underneath a public team.
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Debbie commented
We really would like this ability also.
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Cris Crane commented
I check this everyday for updates, as this feature is the last one needed before we could deploy it for our company.
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Ajit Singh commented
"Private" Channels is essential for using Teams in mid to large enterprises. Looking forward to using it once implemented.
a desperately needed idea. -
Oralando Samuels commented
This would be a welcome feature on my end as well. As we have 200 people in the office Teams that was deployed but there are some channels we would like to make private instead of rolling out a new team for just the people interested in that channel.
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Mattie Brothers commented
Thank you for listening! This will be a game changing feature.
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Chaz Weber commented
Thanks for the update!
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Anonymous commented
Cannot wait, this is crucial
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Sheldon Kelly commented
Wonderful!!! Looking forward to the updates and eventual implementation and availability of Private Channels
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Tim Goalen commented
Great news to see this is changed to Under Review, Suphatra... this will be a great feature to have on Teams
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Mitch commented
Brett's statement about new namespaces is super, and all; however, there is a pretty big issue.
Our PMO used to rely on site mailboxes within PWA. In the meantime, Microsoft thought it would be swell to force everyone to use Groups. Guess what? Now, there is an Office Group created for _each_ project, which is totally separate from the project site within pwa. The guy has so many groups listed in Outlook, I'm surprised it hasn't just refused to load anymore.
The point being: if the PMO is being forced to move away from what was a fairly elegant solution to something as discombobulated and friction-inducing as having separate Groups/Teams for each project, he may have to evaluate a different project management solution.
Having private channels _might_ help alleviate some of that friction, having a single Project Management Group/Team with channels dedicated to each project. It still doesn't solve the problem created by Microsoft by 'easing use' of SharePoint and PWA. The fact that every few months, businesses have to reevaluate (read completely abandon) their processes, because Microsoft has decided in its agile wisdom to upend tools leads me to believe that either they are not listening or do not care.
You can't stay the 'standard office solution' behaving this way.
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Bobby commented
Thank for the update and for the hard work going into making this happen @suphatra!
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Yan commented
Add an access and authorization function into different channel. That mean, the administrator could set which group member could see the information from which channel.
It is really helpful, that even in one group there are also different channel and different topic need to be discussed with different members.
Thanks.