When you create a team in Microsoft Teams you choose its privacy: public, private or org-wide. That one choice decides who can find the team, who can join and who gets to see the files, including through Search and Copilot. Below you'll find when to choose which type, how to change it later and what to watch for as an admin.
The three types
- Private: only people an owner adds become members. By default the team isn't discoverable for others; joining takes an invitation, a team code or an approved request. Use it for projects, customers, HR, management and anything sensitive.
- Public: anyone in the organization can find the team and join without approval. Use it for clubs, knowledge sharing, communities and general questions.
- Org-wide: everyone in the organization is a member automatically. Use it for announcements to everyone in smaller organizations.
How to decide
- Is there information not everyone may see, like contracts, salaries or customer data? Choose private.
- Do you want colleagues to find and join the team themselves, like a community around Excel or sustainability? Choose public.
- Must really everyone be in it automatically, and is your organization small enough? Choose org-wide.
In doubt? Start with private. Opening a team up is always possible; working out afterwards who already saw what is much harder. The full walkthrough for a new team is in create and organise a team in Microsoft Teams.
Be careful with public teams
- A public team's files live on a SharePoint site that everyone in the organization can open. So they also appear in Search and in Microsoft 365 Copilot answers for colleagues who aren't members.
- Guests can never join a public team on their own. An owner has to add them.
- A private channel inside a public team stays protected, with its own SharePoint site. Creating one is covered in create a standard, private or shared channel.
Switching a public team to private locks the files for non-members. It doesn't undo anything that was already downloaded or shared.
Rules for org-wide teams
- Only a Global Administrator can create an org-wide team or convert an existing team.
- Your organization can have no more than 10,000 users, and you can have up to five org-wide teams.
- All active users are added automatically. Guests, blocked accounts, resource and room accounts and accounts backed by a shared mailbox are left out.
- Members can't leave the team themselves. Always remove people through Teams, not through the admin center or Outlook, or they'll be added again.
Tip: let only owners post in the first channel and turn off @team mentions. Otherwise everyone gets a notification for every message.
Change the privacy later
As a team owner
- In Teams, go to the team and select ... (More options) next to its name.
- Choose Edit team.
- Under Privacy, pick the new type and select Done or Update.
As an admin
In the Teams admin center, go to Teams > Manage teams, select the team and change the privacy in its settings (the exact name can differ slightly). If your organization uses sensitivity labels for groups and sites, a label can fix the privacy. You then choose the label when creating a team, and the privacy follows from it. To limit who creates teams at all, see restrict who can create teams.
Agree on the rules
Decide as an organization who may create teams, which type is the default and how often owners review their members. Who can do what inside a team is explained in owners, members and guests in Microsoft Teams.
FAQ
Can someone find a private team?
Not by default. An admin can turn on discovery of private teams in the Teams policies of the Teams admin center. Colleagues then see the name and can request access, but the content stays locked until an owner lets them in.
How many members can a team have?
A regular team can have up to 25,000 members. For an org-wide team, the 10,000-user limit for your organization applies.
Can I block public teams?
Not with a single switch, but sensitivity labels that only allow private go a long way. Want colleagues to join private teams easily? Create a team code.
Nederlandstalige versie: Openbaar, privé of organisatiebreed team in Microsoft Teams