Updated on March 28th 2020 to clarify that this relates to the 'teams' part of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is not a new product, but there's still quite a bit of confusion about what it is, and how it can improve workplace productivity. Some people think that it is just a chat app. Some think that it's just an upgraded version of Skype for Business. The truth is that Microsoft Teams is an extremely powerful application that can be used to enhance teamwork through enriched collaboration and communication. Unlike other Office productivity applications that have a legacy to preserve and millions of users to consider, Microsoft Teams is built from scratch with the modern workplace in mind. This also means that Microsoft Teams introduces a new work behavior, that many people – especially those that are used to email – might find difficult.
'Teams' in Microsoft Teams explained
Create a team for a specific scenario with team templates that come with relevant apps and channels. Select Teams Join or create a team Create team. Select a team template based on the team scenario you want. Each team template comes with added channels and apps to. As the creator of the team, you are the owner. Invite people to your team and create some channels. For a deeper look at roles and permissions, see Team owner, member, and guest capabilities in Teams. Feel free to create more teams—you can own up to 250 teams simultaneously per account. Create a team from an existing team. Mar 23, 2021 Restoring the Microsoft 365 group for a team restores team content, including tabs, standard channels, and private channels and their associated site collections. By default, a deleted Microsoft 365 group is retained for 30 days. This 30-day period is called 'soft-delete' because you can restore the group. Mar 23, 2021 When you create a team, a Microsoft 365 group is created to manage team membership. The group's related services, such as a SharePoint site, Power BI workspace, etc. Are created at the same time. People who create teams can choose to use an existing Microsoft 365 group if they are an owner of that group. When you create a team, a Microsoft 365 group is created to manage team membership. The group's related services, such as a SharePoint site, Power BI workspace, etc. Are created at the same time. People who create teams can choose to use an existing Microsoft 365 group if they are an owner of that group.
How can you explain the 'teams' part of Microsoft Teams in a way that your organization can quickly understand? When I describe teams in Microsoft Teams, I use an illustrative analogy that most people can relate to. For those of you who have Storyals Lite or Storyals Pro, you will see me explain this in the 'Enhance teamwork' introduction video. For the rest of you, I'll share my description in this blog.
1) Think of a 'team' as a house
In Microsoft Teams you work in different 'teams'. You can think of each team as a house where you work together with others. Everyone who is a member of the house will be included in everything that goes on in the house.
Even if you can 'walk between different houses', it's a bit confusing and tiring. Similarly, in Microsoft Teams you don't want to create or be a member of too many teams. For organizations that don't have any governance in place, or for end-users that haven't received any guidance, the number of teams created can easily grow out of proportion. This is not good for end-user productivity. When you start using Microsoft Teams you should think through how various groups within your organization collaborate with one another. Think through how to create teams so that the collaboration will be as efficient as possible.
2) Think of a 'Channel' as a room
When you first build your house it only has one room. In Microsoft Teams this corresponds to the 'General' channel.
In this room, you can hear what everyone says -whether or not you are in the room at the point in time it is said. Everything is noted down. In Microsoft Teams this relates to 'Posts'. Conversations, announcements, replies, everything is visible in the 'Posts' window. Everyone in the team sees everything in the channel posts.
You are not limited to just talking to each other in the room. You can use facial expressions and body language! In Microsoft Teams you do this using reactions, emoticons, GIFs, memes, stickers and much more. By being able to express yourself more freely in the digital workplace, it's easier for people to let their personalities shine through. You can create a more fun and inclusive culture, where the ones not physically located in the same place can still feel involved and as part of the team.
As you start working on more projects and more initiatives, different constellations of people in your house will break out and start working in different rooms. In Microsoft Teams a new room corresponds to a new 'Channel'. As of November 2019, you can select if a channel should be 'Standard' or 'Private'. You can think of a Private channel as an invisible room that only selected people in your house can see and have the key to enter.
3) Think of the 'Activity Feed' as the hallway
In the middle of the house you have a hallway. You can stand in the hallway, open the doors to the rooms you are most interested in, and hear all the conversations going on in the various rooms – without leaving the hallway!
In Microsoft Teams, the hallway corresponds to the 'Activity Feed.' Opening the door to a room corresponds to turning on 'Channel notifications'.
You don't have to worry about missing out on anything that is being said in the rooms with closed doors. At any time, you can walk into the room and get up to speed on everything that has happened in the room. In Microsoft Teams, this corresponds to going to a channel and seeing what's been posted in the 'Posts' window. Also, if someone in a room wants your attention – even if the door is closed, they can just get your attention using a megaphone. In Microsoft Teams, this relates to an @mention. Whenever someone @mentions you, you will see it in your 'Activity feed' whether you have turned on channel notifications or not.
4) Think of 'Chat' as private conversations by the coffee machine
Sometimes you might want to have a private conversation with one, or a few people in your house. A conversation that is not heard by everyone else. In Teams you do this using 'Chat' or 'Calls'. Whatever you write or say here is only for the ones present. If you frequently have private conversations with a group of people, you can create a group chat.
Private conversations are great for social talk or for things that aren't of interest to the others in the room. Such as, 'I'm running late', or 'shall we meet up for lunch?'
But it's important that you don't use private chats for business-related discussions that could be of interest to others in the channel. Those discussions should be in the channel posts – where they are visible to others.
5) Think of 'Tabs' as posters pinned on the wall
In your various rooms, you can pin things on the walls. This helps the ones in your room focus on what's most important and it helps them find what they need. In Microsoft Teams this corresponds to 'Tabs'. Here you can pin things of importance – such as Excel spreadsheets, shared notes and other apps.
Succeeding with Microsoft Teams
Understanding how Microsoft Teams works is an important step in order to succeed with your Microsoft Teams adoption. Whats my address right now google. But it's important to acknowledge that Teams drastically changes the way people work, and changing behavior is difficult. I recommend you read our previous blog post or see the video, How to succeed with Microsoft Teams to get more insights, and also check out our other blogs on Teams. Good luck with your adoption and feel free to reach out to us if you need help! Or click on the 'Book a demo' button below if you are interested to see Storyals in action!
-->This article describes some of the limits, specifications, and other requirements that apply to Teams.
Teams and channels
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of teams a user can create | Subject to a 250 object limit¹ |
| Number of teams a user can be a member of | 1,000² |
| Number of members in a team | 25,0006 |
| Number of owners per team | 100 |
| Number of org-wide teams allowed in a tenant | 5² |
| Number of members in an org-wide team | 10,000 |
| Number of teams a global admin can create | 500,000 |
| Number of teams a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization can have | 500,000³ |
| Number of channels per team | 200 (includes deleted channels)4 |
| Number of Private channels per team | 30 (includes deleted channels)4 |
| Number of members in a Private channel | 250 |
| Maximum size of distribution list, security group or Office 365 group that can be imported in to a team | 3,500 |
| Maximum number of members in an Office 365 group that can be converted to a team | 10,0006 |
| Channel conversation post size | Approximately 28 KB per post5 |
1 Any directory object in Azure Active Directory counts towards this limit. Global admins are exempt from this limit, as are apps calling Microsoft Graph using application permissions.
2 This limit includes archived teams.
Microsoft Teams Team Calendar
3 To further increase the number of teams, you must contact Microsoft support and request further increase to the number of Azure Active Directory objects in your tenant. Increase is only made for real-life production scenarios.
4 Deleted channels can be restored within 30 days. During these 30 days, a deleted channel continues to be counted towards the 200 channel or 30 private channel per team limit. After 30 days, a deleted channel and its content are permanently deleted and the channel no longer counts towards the per team limit.
5 28 KB is an approximate limit because it includes the message itself (text, image links, etc.), @-mentions, number of connectors, and reactions.
6 Teams in GCC can accommodate 25,000 members but teams in GCCH/DoD can only accommodate 2,500 members. Further note that teams/channel mentions are blocked in teams with over 10,000 members.
Messaging
Chat
Users who participate in conversations that are part of the chat list in Teams must have an Exchange Online (cloud-based) mailbox for an admin to search chat conversations. That's because conversations that are part of the chat list are stored in the cloud-based mailboxes of the chat participants. If a chat participant doesn't have an Exchange Online mailbox, the admin won't be able to search or place a hold on chat conversations. For example, in an Exchange hybrid deployment, users with on-premises mailboxes might be able to participate in conversations that are part of the chat list in Teams. However, in this case, content from these conversations isn't searchable and can't be placed on hold because the users don't have cloud-based mailboxes. (For more, see How Exchange and Microsoft Teams interact.)
Teams chat works on a Microsoft Exchange backend, so Exchange messaging limits apply to the chat function within Teams.
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of people in a private chat1 | 2502 |
| Number of people in a video or audio call from chat | 20 |
| Number of file attachments3 | 10 |
| Chat size | Approximately 28 KB per post4 |
1 If you have more than 20 people in a chat, the following chat features are turned off: Outlook automatic replies and Teams status messages; typing indicator; video and audio calling; sharing; read receipts. The 'Set Delivery Options' button (!) is also removed when private group chats contain more than 20 members.
2 Only 200 members at a time can be added to a group chat. See this article for more information.
3 If the number of attachments exceeds this limit, you'll see an error message.
4 Openssl x25519. 28 KB is an approximate limit because it includes the message itself (text, image links, etc.), @-mentions, and reactions.
Emailing a channel
If users want to send an email to a channel in Teams, they use the channel email address. When an email is part of a channel, anyone can reply to it to start a conversation. Here are some of the applicable limits for sending email to a channel.
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Message size1 | 24 KB |
| Number of file attachments2 | 20 |
| Size of each file attachment | Less than 10 MB |
| Number of inline images2 | 50 |
1 If the message exceeds this limit, a preview message is generated and the user is asked to download and view the original email from the link provided.
2 If the number of attachments or images exceeds this limit, you'll see an error message.
For more information, see Exchange Online limits.
Note
Message size, file attachments, and inline images limits are the same across all Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses. Emailing a channel is not available in Teams for Office GCC/GCCH/DOD organizations.
Channel names
Channel names can't contain the following characters or words:
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Characters | ~ # % & * { } + / : < > ? | ' ' , . |
| Characters in these ranges | 0 to 1F 80 to 9F |
| Words | forms, CON, CONIN$, CONOUT$, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1 to COM9, LPT1 to LPT9, desktop.ini, _vti_ |
Channel names also can't start with an underscore (_) or period (.), or end with a period (.).
Meetings and calls
Important
For more information, see Exchange Online limits.
Note
Message size, file attachments, and inline images limits are the same across all Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses. Emailing a channel is not available in Teams for Office GCC/GCCH/DOD organizations.
Channel names
Channel names can't contain the following characters or words:
| Type | Example |
|---|---|
| Characters | ~ # % & * { } + / : < > ? | ' ' , . |
| Characters in these ranges | 0 to 1F 80 to 9F |
| Words | forms, CON, CONIN$, CONOUT$, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1 to COM9, LPT1 to LPT9, desktop.ini, _vti_ |
Channel names also can't start with an underscore (_) or period (.), or end with a period (.).
Meetings and calls
Important
Microsoft 365 live event limit increases
To continue supporting our customers' needs, through June 30, 2021, we will extend temporary limit increases for live events, including:
- Event support for up to 20,000 attendees
- 50 events can be hosted simultaneously across a tenant
- Event duration of 16 hours per broadcast
Additionally, Live Events with up to 100,000 attendees can be planned through the Microsoft 365 assistance program. The team will assess each request and work with you to determine options that may be available. Learn more.
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in) | 1000, includes GCC but not yet for GCCH or DoD. View-only allows for up to 20,000 listen-only participants to join a meeting in which the organizer has a license for E3/E5/A3/A5 SKU, as well as, Government (GCC, GCC High, DoD). Learn more about the View-only experience. |
| Number of people in a video or audio call from chat | 20 |
| Max PowerPoint File Size | 2GB |
| Teams keeps meeting recordings that don't get uploaded to Microsoft Stream, available for local download | 20 days |
Meeting expiration
Note
A meeting URL will never stop working. The expiry only relates to any PSTN dial-in numbers and/or underlying meeting policies and settings.
| Meeting type | Meeting expires after this much time | Each time you start or update a meeting, expiration extends by this much time |
|---|---|---|
| Meet now | Start time + 8 hours | N/A |
| Regular with no end time | Start time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Regular with end time | End time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Recurring with no end time | Start time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Recurring with end time | End time of last occurrence + 60 days | 60 days |
Note
Microsoft Teams meetings have a time limit of 24 hours.
Teams Live Events
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Audience size | 10,000 attendees |
| Duration of event | 4 hours |
| Concurrent Live Events running in a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization 1 | 15 |
1 You can schedule as many Live Events as you want, but you can only run 15 at a time. As soon as the producer joins a live event, it's considered to be running. The producer who attempts to join the 16th live event gets an error.
For more information about live events and a comparison of Teams live events to Skype Meeting Broadcast, go to Teams live events and Skype Meeting Broadcast. See also Schedule a Teams live event.
Important
Microsoft 365 live event limit increases
To continue supporting our customers' needs, through June 30, 2021, we will extend temporary limit increases for live events, including:
- Event support for up to 20,000 attendees
- 50 events can be hosted simultaneously across a tenant
- Event duration of 16 hours per broadcast
Additionally, Live Events with up to 100,000 attendees can be planned through the Microsoft 365 assistance program. The team will assess each request and work with you to determine options that may be available. Learn more.
Presence in Outlook
Teams presence in Outlook is supported on the Outlook 2013 desktop app and later. To learn more about presence in Teams, see User presence in Teams.
Storage
Each team in Microsoft Teams has a team site in SharePoint Online, and each channel in a team gets a folder within the default team site document library. Files shared within a conversation are automatically added to the document library, and permissions and file security options set in SharePoint are automatically reflected within Teams.
Note
Each private channel has its own SharePoint site (previously called 'site collection').
If you don't have SharePoint Online enabled in your tenant, Microsoft Teams users cannot always share files in teams. Users in private chat also cannot share files because OneDrive for Business (which is tied to the SharePoint license) is required for that functionality.
By storing the files in the SharePoint Online document library and OneDrive for Business, all compliance rules configured at the tenant level will be followed. (For more, see How SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Microsoft Teams.)
Because Teams runs on a SharePoint Online backend for file sharing, SharePoint limitations apply to the Files section within a Team. Here are the applicable storage limits for SharePoint Online.
| Feature | Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Office 365 Enterprise E1 | Office 365 Enterprise E3 | Office 365 Enterprise E5 | Office 365 Enterprise F1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization |
| Storage for Teams Files | Up to 25 TB per site or group | Up to 25 TB per site or group | Up to 25 TB per site or group | Up to 25 TB per site or group | Up to 25 TB per site or group | Up to 25 TB per site or group |
| File upload limit (per file) | 100 GB | 100 GB | 100 GB | 100 GB | 100 GB | 100 GB |
Channels are backed by folders within the SharePoint Online site (previously called 'site collection') created for the team, so file tabs within Channels share the storage limits of the team they belong to.
For more information, see SharePoint Online limits.
Class teams
Microsoft Teams for Education provides templates designed for unique education scenarios, such as classroom teaching. More information about team types, including class teams, is available in Choose a team type to collaborate in Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft Teams Team View
A class team is a template type with additional apps included, and with limits separate to the number of team members.
Note
Using class teams requires an Office 365 Education license.
Limits for class teams are listed in the following table:
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of members in a team | See the Teams and channels section of this article |
| Number of members to use Assignments in a class team | 200 |
| Number of members to use a OneNote Class Notebook in a class team | 200 |
A class team can support more than 200 members. However, if you plan to use either the Assignments app or Class Notebook app within your team, you will need to keep the number of members below the maximum limits above.
Tags
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of tags per team | 100 |
| Number of suggested default tags per team | 25 |
| Number of team members assign to a tag | 100 |
| Number of tags assigned to a user per team | 25 |
Contacts
Teams uses these contacts:
- Contacts in your organization's Active Directory
- Contacts added to the user's Outlook default folder
Teams users can communicate with anyone in your organization's Active Directory and can add anyone in your organization's Active Directory as a contact and to their contact lists by going to Chat > Contacts or Calls > Contacts.
Teams users can also add a person who isn't in your organization's Active Directory as a contact by going to Calls > Contacts.
Browsers
Teams fully supports the following Internet browsers, with noted exceptions for calling and meetings. This table applies to operating systems running on desktop computers.
| Browser | Calling - audio, video, and sharing | Meetings - audio, video, and sharing123 |
|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 11 | Not supported | Meetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on IE11 without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client. Video: Not supported Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing) Microsoft 365 apps and services will not support Internet Explorer 11 starting August 17, 2021 (Microsoft Teams will not support Internet Explorer 11 earlier, starting November 30, 2020). Learn more. Please note that Internet Explorer 11 will remain a supported browser. Internet Explorer 11 is a component of the Windows operating system and follows the Lifecycle Policy for the product on which it is installed. |
| Microsoft Edge, RS2 or later | Fully supported, except no outgoing sharing4 | Fully supported, except no outgoing sharing |
| Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versions | Fully supported | Fully supported |
| Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versions | Fully supported | Fully supported Sharing is supported without any plug-ins or extensions on Chrome version 72 or later. |
| Safari 14+ | 1:1 calls not supported. Group calls fully supported. Video: Fully supported Sharing: Fully supported | Meetings: Fully supported Video: Fully supported Sharing: Fully supported |
| Safari 13.1+ | 1:1 calls not supported. Group calls supported with full audio support. Video: Incoming only Sharing: Fully supported | Meetings are supported with full audio support. Video: Incoming only Sharing: Fully supported |
| Firefox, the latest version plus two previous versions | Not supported | Meetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on Firefox without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client. Video: Not supported Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing) |
| Safari versions before 13 | Not supported | Meetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on Safari without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client. Video: Not supported Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing) Safari is enabled on versions higher than 11.1 in preview. While in preview, there are known issues with Safari's Intelligent Tracking Prevention. |
1 To give and take control of shared content during sharing, both parties must be using the Teams desktop client. Control isn't supported when either party is running Teams in a browser. This is due to a technical limitation that we're planning to fix.
2 Blur my background isn't available when you run Teams in a browser. This feature is only available in the Teams desktop client.
3 Teams meetings on browsers are limited to a single incoming video feed of active speaker.
4 Edge RS2 or later doesn't support sending real-time audio and video traffic through HTTP proxies.
Note
As long as an operating system can run the supported browser, Teams is supported on desktop computers. For example, running Firefox on the Linux operating system is an option for using Teams.
For mobile operating systems, we recommend that you run the Teams app, available from the Android and iOS stores. Running Teams in a mobile operating system is supported, but many features are unavailable.
Operating systems
For information about operating system requirements, see Get clients for Microsoft Teams.
