28 power user tips for Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a powerful corporate chat, collaboration, and meeting application. Because it’s included with most Microsoft 365 and Office 365 business and enterprise subscriptions, many companies already use it as a primary way to keep their workforce — both in-office and remote — in touch.

Teams lets you set up multiple channels (discussion areas) for your team, share and store files, and conduct voice and video meetings. As part of Microsoft 365/Office 365, Teams integrates well with the family of Microsoft business apps and services that encompasses Excel, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, Planner, PowerPoint, SharePoint, and Word.

To get started using Teams in a business setting, see our Microsoft Teams cheat sheet. After you’ve gotten a handle on the basics, try the tips in this guide to get more out of this powerful collaboration tool. (Here’s a look at how it compares to rivals.)

This guide focuses on the Teams desktop app for Windows or Mac under a business subscription. There are also Teams mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as a web app. But these apps emphasize chatting without a lot of the advanced features of their desktop counterparts. Likewise, a consumer version of Teams is available, but it doesn’t include all the features for business users covered in this story.

Also note that although this guide includes a few tips for video meetings, it focuses mainly on the chat and group collaboration features of Teams. To learn more about videoconferencing in Teams, see “11 best practices for Microsoft Teams video meetings” and “The 10 best new Microsoft Teams meeting features.”

Take control of the interface

1. Organize your teams and channels.

In the sidebar at the left side of the app, click the Teams icon to open the Teams pane. You’ll see the teams that you’re a member of, with one or more channels below each team name.

By default, teams (and the channels below each team) appear in the order that you joined or created them. But as you use Microsoft Teams over time in your daily work, some teams and channels will become more important to you than others — and not necessarily in the order that the Teams app places them.

Pinning a channel moves it toward the top of the Teams pane for easy access. To do this, click the three-dot (More options) icon to the right of the channel name and select Pin from the menu that opens. (Do this process again to unpin a channel.)

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To change the order of your pinned channels, click-and-hold a channel name and drag it up or down to where you’d like it to be in the list of pinned channels.

You can also do this to change the order of your teams: Click-and-hold a team name and drag it up or down to where you’d like to move it on the list.

2. Hide low-priority channels or teams.

You can tidy up your Teams workspace by hiding channels or teams that are not important to your work at the moment.

To hide a channel or team, click the three-dot icon to the right of its name, then click Hide from the menu that opens. (Note that you cannot hide the General channel for any team.)

To unhide a channel, look at the list of channels under a team name. At the end of this list is a link saying how many hidden channels that this team has; click this link to open a menu revealing the hidden channels. Move the pointer over the name of the channel that you want to unhide, and click the Show icon to the right.

To unhide a team, look or scroll down to the end of the list of your teams, where you’ll see a Hidden teams link. Click this to open the list of hidden teams. Click the three-dot icon to the right of a hidden team, then click Show at the top of the menu that opens.

3. Quickly find conversations that you’re a member of or messages that you’re tagged in.

In Teams, it’s easy to see all the conversations (message threads within a channel) and messages that you’re a part of at a glance.

At the top of the left sidebar, click the Activity icon. This opens the Feed pane to the right. To the right of the Feed pane title bar, right-click the Filter icon (three horizontal lines in a funnel shape) and select @ Mentions from the menu that opens. (Or type /mentions into the search bar at the top of the Teams app.) Conversations that you’re a member of, and messages that you’re tagged in, will be listed in the Feed pane.

4. Save specific messages.

This trick can be handy if you want to compile a list of messages to catch up on or refer to later. Move the pointer to the upper-right of a message that you want to save, click the three-dot (More options) icon, and click Save this message from the menu that opens.

To see a list of your saved messages, click your profile headshot or icon at the upper right of the Teams app and click Saved from the menu that opens. (Or type /saved into the search bar at the top of the Teams desktop app.) The messages that you saved will appear in the Saved pane toward the left side of the Teams app.

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Tip: It can be useful to save messages that have attached files (such as important documents that you need to look at later) without having to download the files.

Make conversations and messages stand out

5. Get someone’s attention.

Channels typically contain many conversations — and many messages within those conversations — so it can be easy to overlook a message. To make sure a specific person on your team sees a particular message, tag them as you write your message by typing @username. (Replace “username” with the person’s user name, of course.) Or: After you type @, a menu opens listing the names of people in your organization. Click a name on this list to tag them in your message.) Once you post the message, the person will get a notification as a prompt to read it and respond to it.

You can also use this @ function to send a direct message (a one-on-one message) to a team member. Inside the search box at the top of the Microsoft Teams desktop app, type @ and their name (or type @ and click their name from the list that opens). Type a short message in the search box and press Enter or click the right arrow at the right end of the search box.

6. Title your conversations.

One way to help a conversation thread stand out among the other conversations in a channel is by giving it a title. Another plus: You can enter the title into the search box of the Teams desktop app to find the conversation later. You don’t have to title every conversation. It’s best to give titles to only the most important conversations that you want to track.

To add a title as you’re composing a new conversation: Click the Format icon (an “A” with a pencil) at the left end of the toolbar below the text entry field. The message composing window will expand up. On the line that says “Add a subject,” type in a title, then type your message below. Click the Send arrow at the bottom right of the message composing window to post your conversation with its new title to the channel.

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You can also add a title to an existing conversation by moving the pointer to the upper right of the message, clicking the three-dot icon that appears, and clicking Edit from the menu that opens. Click the Format icon at the left end of the toolbar below the text entry field. On the line that says “Add a subject,” type in a title. Click the checkmark at the bottom right of the message composing window to post your conversation with its new title back to the channel.

7. Control the conversation.

The expanded message composing window that appears when you click the Format icon has more neat tricks up its sleeve.

If you want to make a conversation really stand out, you can turn it into an announcement. In the expanded message formatting window, click the New conversation drop-down at the top left and select Announcement. A field appears where you can type a large headline for your post and optionally include a background image or colored background to make it stand out even more.

Tip: By default, everyone in a channel can reply to conversations, but you might not want that for an announcement. If you click the Everyone can reply drop-down at the top of the message composing window, you can select You and moderators can reply to limit responses to only these people.

If you want your conversation to appear in more than one channel, select Post in multiple channels, click the Select channels button, and on the panel that opens, check the boxes next to the channels you want to post your conversation to.

8. Mark a message as important.

One last option for drawing attention to a message in a channel conversation is to mark it as important. Once you post it, Teams will immediately alert the other people in the chat to read your message. They will be reminded to do so every two minutes for 20 minutes. Obviously, you should only use this function for a truly urgent matter.

To mark a message important, click the Format icon. The message composing window will expand up. At the right end of the text formatting toolbar, click the three-dot (More options) icon, and from the menu that opens select Mark as important.

All four of these options should be used sparingly, only for conversations and messages of top importance.

Chat more effectively

9. Reply to a specific message.

While conversations in team channels are accessible to all members of that team, private chats take place between two or more individuals and are accessible by clicking the Chat icon in the left sidebar.

In a group chat, all messages appear in the order they were posted, no matter who posted them. If you see an earlier message you want to reply to directly, move the mouse pointer over that message. A toolbar of emoticons appears; click the three-dot (More options) icon and select Reply on the small menu that opens. Your reply will show the message you’re replying to for context.

10. Pin a message.

You can pin a message to the top of the chat window, bringing it to the attention of others in the chat. Move the mouse pointer over the message you want to pin. The emoticons toolbar appears; click the three-dot icon and select Pin on the small menu that opens.

11. Start a chat in a new window.

Normally, when you start a new chat, it opens in the main window of the Teams desktop app. You can change this so that a new chat opens in a separate window: At the top right of the Teams app, click the three-dot (Settings and more) icon and click Settings from the menu that opens. Under “Open new chat in,” click New window.

12. Poll your colleagues.

This feature is currently available only when your Teams app is switched to your personal account. Open the chat where you want to create the poll. Below the box where you type in a message, click the polls icon (represented as three vertical bars). On the panel that opens, type in your poll question and answer choices.

By clicking Add option, you can add up to six answer choices. If you want to allow people to select more than once answer choice, click the switch next to Multiple answers.

Click the Save button to see a preview of your poll. On this preview panel, you can click the Edit button to make changes to your poll. Otherwise, click the Send button. The people in this chat will see this poll and be able to respond to it.

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Manage notifications

13. Follow important channels.

If you want to be updated of your colleagues’ latest activities in specific channels, open the Teams pane and click a team name to see its channels. Move the pointer over the name of the channel you want to be updated on, click the three-dot (More options) icon to the right, select Channel notifications, and click All activity from the menu that opens.

This menu lists another option, Custom. When you click this, the “Channel notification settings” panel opens. Here you can set if you want to be notified whenever a new message is posted to this channel and/or whenever the channel is mentioned by someone in Teams. If you turn either notification on, you can specify if you want to be notified through your Activity pane feed and as a banner, or only through your Activity pane feed.

14. Adjust other notifications.

By default, Teams sends you notifications that update you on several activities — @mentions, new messages, changes to team membership statuses, and more — through various methods such as banner alerts, your Activity pane feed, and email. To adjust or change what you are notified about:

Click your profile pic or initials at the upper right of the Teams desktop app, and then click Manage account. On the Settings panel that opens, click Notifications.

This switches to an extensive list of activities that you can be notified about, letting you choose what kind of notification you want to receive for each (banner and email, banner only, feed only, or off).

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You may need to experiment with the various settings to find the right balance of notifications that works best for you. But once you’ve figured it out, you’ll be glad you made the adjustments.

Share documents

15. Add documents to a channel’s tabs.

A channel has tabs along the top of its main window. By default, these tabs include Posts (for conversations) and Files, where team members can upload and share files. You can also add a tab that displays a document (such as an Excel, PowerPoint, or Word file or a PDF) for members of the channel to see and collaborate on.

Click the Files tab. On the toolbar at the top of this tab, click Upload, and choose the document on your computer or OneDrive. Or you can drag-and-drop the document onto the main window of this channel.

After the document has been uploaded, click the + icon to the right of the existing tabs at the top of the main channel pane. A panel opens, presenting a large selection of web apps. Click the app that would be used to open the document that you just uploaded (e.g., Excel for an Excel file).

Another panel opens. Below “Tab name,” type in a name for this new tab. Then, further below, click the document that you just uploaded and click the Save button.

A new tab with the name you typed in will appear at the top of the channel. Click this tab to switch to it. It will display your document in the channel’s main window. If it’s a Microsoft Office document, you and other team members can edit or comment on it.

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To start a conversation with your team members about this document, click the Show tab conversation icon (the speech balloon) that’s toward the upper-right corner. This will open a conversation sidebar along the right side.

16. Sync files in a channel with OneDrive.

You can sync files that have been uploaded to a channel to your OneDrive storage. When the current files in the channel are updated, or new files are uploaded to the channel, these files will be synced automatically to your OneDrive.

Open the channel that has files you want to sync with. Click the Files tab at the top. On the toolbar at the top of this tab, click Sync. A panel will open that will take you through the steps of signing in to your OneDrive (or OneDrive for Business) account and then setting it to sync with this channel.

17. Use SharePoint to store and share files.

Many enterprises rely on SharePoint for secure file storage and collaboration. If your company is using SharePoint with Teams, you can click the Files tab to share files with your team members via SharePoint, or access SharePoint files that are already shared to the channel.

When you upload a file to the Files tab, it’s automatically saved to the SharePoint site for your team within a folder structure that corresponds to the team’s channels. To go to your SharePoint site, click the three-dot icon in the toolbar at the top of the Files tab and select Open in SharePoint from the menu that opens.

Team members can collaborate on files shared to a channel using Microsoft Office Online or an Office desktop app.

SharePoint team site owners can also add pages, lists, and document libraries as tabs in a Teams channel. In the channel, select the + icon to the right of the tabs at the top of the main pane. On the “Add a tab” panel, select the SharePoint icon. On the panel that appears select the Pages, Lists, or Document libraries tab to see a list of available items to add. Make a selection and click Save. The item will be added as a tab in the channel.

Master meetings

18. Auto-adjust your microphone.

The Teams desktop app includes an auto-adjustment feature for your microphone that’s turned on by default. But if you’re experiencing issues, such as your voice sounding too loud or quiet through your mic, check to be sure auto-adjustment is actually on for you — or turn it off to see if things improve without it.

At the top right of the Teams app, click the three-dot (Settings and more) icon and click Settings from the menu that opens. In the left column, click Devices. To the right of Automatically adjust mic sensitivity, turn the switch on or off.

19. Let attendees bypass the lobby.

Depending on how Teams is configured in your organization, other meeting attendees may have to wait in a virtual lobby for you (the meeting organizer) to let them in. But you can change the meeting settings so that some or all attendees are able to bypass the meeting lobby.

There are a few different ways to get started:

• In the Teams app, open a meeting from the calendar and click Meeting options. (If you don’t see it, click the three-dot icon in the toolbar and then select Meeting options.)
• In Outlook, open a meeting invitation and click Meeting options.
• In a Teams meeting, select the three-dot (More actions) icon in the toolbar at the upper right of the meeting window and select Meeting options. Or click Show participants in the toolbar, click the three-dot icon at the top of the Participants pane, and select Manage participants.

A “Meeting options” pane will open. Next to Who can bypass the lobby?, click the drop-down and select an option. Depending on the edition of Microsoft 365 you’re using, your choices may include “People I invite (Turn off Allow Forwarding in the meeting invite),” “People in my organization,” “People in my organization and guests,” and “Everyone.” In some cases you’ll want to limit the people who can bypass the lobby to those you’ve invited to the meeting; in others it might make more sense to allow anyone in your organization to bypass the lobby. When you’ve made a selection, click Save.

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When the people you’ve designated click to join your meeting, they will be immediately entered into the meeting when it’s in session.

20. Turn off attendees’ cameras and/or mics.

In small meetings, it’s customary for most or all participants to be on camera, but in large meetings, meeting organizers may want to prevent attendees from turning on their cameras and mics to minimize distractions and improve call quality.

To do so before a meeting takes place, go to the “Meeting options” pane as outlined in the previous tip and turn off the Allow mic for attendees? and Allow camera for attendees? switches. Then click Save.

To prevent people from turning on their cameras or mics when a meeting is already taking place, click the three-dot (More actions) icon at the top of the Participants pane and select Disable mic for attendees or Disable camera for attendees.

Meeting organizers and presenters can also prevent specific people from turning on their cameras or unmuting their mics during a meeting. Open the list of participants, click the three-dot (More options) icon next to the person’s name, and select Disable mic or Disable camera from the menu that opens.

Integrate Teams with other apps

21. Send emails directly to a channel.

You can send an email to a channel: Move the pointer over the channel name, click the three-dot icon that appears to the right, and select Get email address. This generates an email address specifically for the channel. Give this to others so that they can send an email to the channel. Their email will be posted to the channel as a conversation, including any files that they attached to the email.

Anyone who has the email address for your channel can send emails to it. To change this, click the channel’s three-dot icon, select Get email address and then the advanced settings link. Select Only members of this team or Only email sent from these domains: (inside which you can type in one or more domains for trusted organizations).

To stop emails from being sent to the channel, click the channel’s three-dot icon and select Get email address > Remove email address.

Another way to post an email to a channel is via Outlook, which has the built-in ability to share emails to Teams channels. While viewing an email in the Outlook desktop app, click Share to Teams in the Ribbon toolbar. In the web app version of Outlook, view the email you want to send and click the three-dot (More actions) icon at the top right of the email. From the menu that opens, click Share to Teams.

A “Share to Microsoft Teams” panel appears that lets you designate the channel in Teams you want to send the email to. You can type an additional message if you like, then click the Share button to post the email to the channel.

22. Schedule events with a calendar in your channel.

You can add a calendar to a channel that can be used to schedule events for everyone in that channel to see. Open the channel and click the + icon to the right of the tabs at the top of the channel, which opens the “Add a tab” panel. Click the Channel calendar icon. (If you don’t see the icon right away, start typing channel calendar in the search box.) Then type in a name for this new calendar and click Add.

When an event is added to the channel calendar, a summary post is created in the channel.

To add an event on a channel calendar to your own personal calendar, open the event on the channel calendar and click Add to calendar.

23. Collaborate visually with Microsoft Whiteboard.

Microsoft recently revamped its Whiteboard app, which enables you and your fellow Team members to collaborate on a shared virtual whiteboard. All of you can add text and images to it, which can be created using the app’s sketching tools.

You can use the Whiteboard app during Teams video meetings (see “The 10 best new Microsoft Teams meeting features” for details), but you can also add the Whiteboard app to any of your channels or chats. This allows you and your team members to keep adding to the whiteboard over time.

To add a whiteboard to a channel, open the channel and click the + icon at the top of the channel. This will open the “Add a tab” panel. On this panel, click the Whiteboard icon. Another panel will open where you type in a name for the whiteboard. Click the Save button on the lower right, and your new whiteboard will be added to the channel.

To add a whiteboard to a chat, open the chat and look at the tabs across the top of the window. “Whiteboard” may already be listed here, either visible or underneath the “more” menu. Click Whiteboard in either place to add it. If Whiteboard isn’t listed anywhere along the top of your chat, then click the + icon and follow the steps above for adding a whiteboard to a channel.

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24. Manage tasks with Microsoft Planner.

One perk Teams offers is that you can use other Microsoft 365 apps such as Microsoft Planner inside it by creating a tab for it inside a channel.  To do so, open the channel and click the + icon to the right of the tabs at the top of the channel. On the “Add a tab” panel, click the Tasks by Planner and To Do icon. On the next panel, create a new plan  or select an existing plan for your team and click Save. Then you can quickly add and assign tasks, or see a dashboard for a project in a list, board, chart, or schedule view.

25. Use ‘Loop components’ to collaborate in a chat

Microsoft Loop is a new productivity app that includes components that can be co-edited by work teams in various Microsoft 365 apps. Every Loop component is stored in OneDrive for Business and stays in sync no matter which app users access it from.

In Teams, enterprise users can add a Loop component to a chat so that team members can work on it right in the chat window. It’s similar to co-authoring Word or Excel documents, but Loop components are small snippets such as tables, lists, and paragraphs rather than full documents.

In the main chat window, go to the “Type a new message” text box. Don’t enter any text, but instead click the Loop components icon near the left end of the toolbar below the text window. A menu appears that lets you add a bulleted list, checklist, numbered list, paragraph, table, or task list. Select a component and a draft version of it appears in a panel. For example, if you choose Bulleted list, a panel appears that lets you add a title and bulleted items in the list. If you choose Task list, a panel appears that lets you add task names, assignees, and due dates.

Add information to the component to get it started and click the right arrow (Send Loop component) icon at the lower right to post it to the chat. Your co-workers will be able to edit and add to the component together.

Explore extras

26. Set your out-of-office status.

Teams lets you quickely set a status message — or schedule one in advance — to alert your team when you’re unavailable. To change your status immediately, click your profile picture on the upper right of the Teams app, click Set status message on the panel that opens, and type a brief status message. Click the drop-down menu under “Clear status message after” and choose a period of time after which your status will revert to Available, such as 4 Hours or Today — or choose Custom and set a specific date and time.

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To schedule an out-of-office message in advance, click your profile picture > Set status message, then click the Schedule out of office link on the lower left of the status panel. (Or from anywhere in Teams, click the three-dot (Settings and more) icon on the upper right of the Teams desktop app, click Settings, scroll down, and under the “Out of Office” heading, click Schedule.)

Either method will open the “Out of Office” panel where you can turn on the automatic-reply function and type in a reply message that will be sent whenever someone tries to contact you through Teams. You can set how long your away status will remain active by clicking the checkbox next to Send replies only during a time period and entering start and end dates. When you’re done, click Save.

27. Invite others into the fold.

In Microsoft Teams, you’re not limited to collaborating with people in your own team. You can provide guest access to anyone at your company who has an Outlook account. Try this by typing their name into the search box of the Microsoft Teams desktop app. You can then send them a direct message from the search box as described in tip #5 (“Get someone’s attention”) in this guide.

In fact, guest access isn’t limited to those within your own organization. You can invite anyone who has a Microsoft account by adding them as a member to a channel or tagging them in a message.

Guests have fewer privileges than full team members, but they can create and participate in channels and chats.

Microsoft has announced a feature called Teams Connect that will give you the ability to invite external collaborators to a particular channel without setting up guest accounts; however, it’s still in private beta testing and has not yet been rolled out generally.

28. Use keyboard shortcuts.

It’s always helpful to know the keyboard shortcuts for an app. In Teams, you can press the R key on your keyboard to reply to a conversation. Press Ctrl-O (⌘-O on a Mac) to quickly attach a file to a message. To see all the keyboard shortcuts that are available in Teams, press the Ctrl and period keys together (the ⌘ and period keys on Mac).

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This article was originally published in November 2017 and most recently updated in March 2022.

Read next:

• Microsoft Teams cheat sheet
• 11 best practices for Microsoft Teams video meetings
• The 10 best new Microsoft Teams meeting features