Collapse/expand conversations (hide/show replies)
Users are asking for a few different things:
- Collapse/expend all button -- single click to collapse or expand all threads
- Admin setting for collapse/expand
- Button to re-collapse a thread once its been expanded (right now you have to navigate to another channel in order for the thread to re-collapse)
Please add more granular requests in the thread below.

Item 1 and 2 are Under Review.
Item 3 has been Completed.
I’ll keep you posted as I hear more on this request.
-Warren
153 comments
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Tony commented
Over two years and you are still thinking about it? Come on! Can't you see, based on all of the comments, that it was a really BAD idea to ALWAYS collapse conversations without offering the user any control? I would settle for a simple config option to turn auto-collapse OFF entirely. You are doing me no favors by collapsing long conversations or replies, in fact, you're making things more difficult for me. I NEED to see everything, always.
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Steve Gauthier commented
I don't mind collapsing threads - But Each thread should at the very least be able to expand both itself and each of it's associated replies with a single click.
Also, individual reply's should never collapse with their own "see more/see less" options. Cluttering the UI, and hiding valuable information to save a few pixels is just all around bad form.
Collapse/Show thread is more than sufficient to provide a clean and usable threaded messaging interface.
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Kristi Beattie commented
Hello?!?!?!???! Is anyone at Microsoft listening?? Why is the Auto collapse / auto- expand problem not addressed?
I naively pushed our studio to switch over to Teams from Slack. Holy ****, I had no idea Teams didn't have these options available to be selected by the User under Settings. Now that we are in the midst of a highly technical project with real time coordination occurring between multiple firms, we are losing messages because it is impossible to track them all, to see them all in any logical order. I feel like I'm in the movie, Memento every time I try to catch up on all of the correspondence.
Microsoft: No excuses. Fix this ASAP. -
Thorsten Bauer commented
The user needs a button to collapse or expand all threads at once.
This makes it easier to visually capture content without activating it individually in each discussion -
Anonymous commented
A user preference setting for expand/collapse would be great. Myself, I would use a default of 5 previous posts open so you can keep context to the last. The sooner this is fixed the better, this is one of the loudest compliants we hear.
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Anonymous commented
How have you guys not fixed this yet? It is a huge problem with everyday user experience.
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Robert Dawkins commented
A very awful experience! We use teams to investigate product and machine failures. Conversations tend to be long and down to lots of detail. Since all coversations are collapsed it is very easy to miss information other members are posting in different parts of the world in different time zones.
Conversations do not follow a chronological order making almot impossible to trace information nested in the threads. As a result communication fails, work is duplicated, unnecesary delays and more problems are created. As it is, the tool it is not fit for purpose. Please fix this ASAP
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Louise Ricci commented
Get this done already. We have been moving to Teams this year and we've had numerous complaints about this. Please make this happen!
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Mike Hodson commented
It's been 2 years since "1 and 2" were Under Review.
Where the **** is the option? 2 years is a long enough review. -
Ian S commented
I would also like to turn Auto-collapsing off.
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Anonymous commented
Please let users (or at least admins) set auto-expand everything by default!!!
NOBODY at my company like to have the conservations automatically collapsed -
Anonymous commented
I don't belong to many Teams and the one I use the most is always hidden. There's more than enough white space to show it in, so why bother? The see more function should definitely be a see all button at the very least.
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James Kennedy commented
We often miss requests from team mates because of this feature. Teams should not make communications harder.
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Jeff commented
Please let users choose if they want the reviled "see more" 'feature' enabled. Longer posts within organizations are not rare and are almost always contain vital information for teams, so to have to constantly expand these messages to see the full message is dreadful.
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Anonymous commented
The ability to set it to auto-expand everything by default. I NEVER want to collapse a conversation, that is what the **** scroll wheel is for. You just scroll past the expanded conversation.
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Mandeep Brar commented
the ability to set this per channel would be handy. For example, our org-wide General channel is primarily used for announcements, which we have at least daily and it needs to be expanded every single time. Compared to when they were done via email, you just opened the email and read it. Now it takes 3 clicks instead of 1.
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No Bots Please commented
To pile on a bit, both collapsed conversations and channels are annoying as ****. I constantly have to click on them in order to figure out if I need to pay attention, and I am constantly missing conversations.
Yes, a really long conversation takes up a lot of space. For every one of these, I see a couple dozen with somewhere between 3-6 replies and I have to click on each and every one of them.
Teams shows promise, but the user interface makes it way too hard to do things that should be easy.
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Anonymous commented
It is ridiculous the amount of mouse clicking I need to do with MS Teams. Collapse and expand is one of the cause. Most threads does not make any sense unless you see the prior conversations. I have to expand the conversations every time! It's also very easy to miss conversations...Please improve this experience!!!
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Anonymous commented
Having the ability to collapse see all or expand see more which would impact all of the collapsed or expanded conversations would greatly improve effeciency.
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Andrew commented
To pile on to this, I've now overseen the move from slack to Teams at 2 companies. It has been mostly smooth in both and I like Teams. The biggest neg in both instances was that ambient conversation dropped off a cliff after the switch. Private convos still happen - the chat feature is great - but the threads have some kind of UX issue that really stalls conversation.
After watching the use a lot, I strongly suspect it's the amount of hidden content- specifically hidden channels and more importantly, hidden replies in a thread. I suspect it would be transformative for engagement if we had the option to change the default to never hide replies in a thread - or no threads from a channel, or just really any design solve that involves less content hiding because when it's hidden it's effectively dead from an engagement perspective.