Ms 365 Teams



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Watch on-demand videos from the Microsoft Ignite virtual event and explore new tech that's ready to implement.

Defend against threats in Teams:
Microsoft Teams provides your users with a powerful cloud-based collaboration experience. In this session, you'll learn about the powerful tools that can help identify and protect your cloud-based services using Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), Cloud App Security, and Conditional Access.
John Gruszczyk, Brett Polen
Manage meetings, conferences and events with Microsoft Teams:
Once you've rolled out Microsoft Teams with chat, teams, channels, and apps across your organization, you're ready to add the meetings workload, including audio conferencing, video, and sharing. In this session, you'll learn how to plan and manage Microsoft Teams meetings and conferences and discover how audio conferencing and live events work in Teams.
Brett Polen, Stephen Rose
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This article describes some of the limits, specifications, and other requirements that apply to Teams.

Teams has powerful Microsoft Office integration options. Teams is, of course, tightly integrated with the rest of Microsoft 365. Users can create and manage Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote files within their channels and work with other content in their team’s SharePoint sites. Calendaring connects right into Outlook.

Teams and channels

  • Mar 24, 2021 In the past, Microsoft Teams was a separate installation from Microsoft 365 Apps. But starting with Version 1902, Teams is included as part of new installations of Microsoft 365 Apps. If Teams is already installed on the device, no changes are made to that installation of Teams.
  • Create a schedule. In Shifts, each Teams team gets one schedule to work with, and you can create a schedule for any team you’re an owner of. If it’s your first time using Shifts and your teams don’t have schedules already, don’t worry, we’ll step you through the process of creating one and give you some tips about how to use the app.
  • Microsoft Teams, the hub for team collaboration in Microsoft 365, integrates the people, content, and tools your team needs to be more engaged and effective.
FeatureMaximum limit
Number of teams a user can createSubject to a 250 object limit¹
Number of teams a user can be a member of1,000²
Number of members in a team25,0006
Number of owners per team100
Number of org-wide teams allowed in a tenant
Number of members in an org-wide team10,000
Number of teams a global admin can create500,000
Number of teams a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization can have500,000³
Number of channels per team200 (includes deleted channels)4
Number of Private channels per team30 (includes deleted channels)4
Number of members in a Private channel250
Maximum size of distribution list, security group or Office 365 group that can be imported in to a team3,500
Maximum number of members in an Office 365 group that can be converted to a team10,0006
Channel conversation post sizeApproximately 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.

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.)

Ms 365 Teams Login

Teams chat works on a Microsoft Exchange backend, so Exchange messaging limits apply to the chat function within Teams.

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of people in a private chat12502
Number of people in a video or audio call from chat20
Number of file attachments310
Chat sizeApproximately 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 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.

Ms 365 Teams
FeatureMaximum limit
Message size124 KB
Number of file attachments220
Size of each file attachmentLess than 10 MB
Number of inline images250

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

Microsoft teams

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:

TypeExample
Characters~ # % & * { } + / : < > ? | ' ' , ..
Characters in these ranges0 to 1F
80 to 9F
Wordsforms, 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.

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in)300. View-only allows for up to 10,000 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 chat20
Max PowerPoint File Size2GB
Teams keeps meeting recordings that don't get uploaded to Microsoft Stream, available for local download20 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 typeMeeting expires after this much timeEach time you start or update a meeting, expiration extends by this much time
Meet nowStart time + 8 hoursN/A
Regular with no end timeStart time + 60 days60 days
Regular with end timeEnd time + 60 days60 days
Recurring with no end timeStart time + 60 days60 days
Recurring with end timeEnd time of last occurrence + 60 days60 days
Ms 365 teams icon

Note

Microsoft Teams meetings have a time limit of 24 hours.

Teams Live Events

FeatureMaximum limit
Audience size10,000 attendees
Duration of event4 hours
Concurrent Live Events running in a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization 115

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.

FeatureMicrosoft 365 Business BasicMicrosoft 365 Business StandardOffice 365 Enterprise E1Office 365 Enterprise E3Office 365 Enterprise E5Office 365 Enterprise F1
Storage1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization
Storage for Teams FilesUp to 25 TB per site or groupUp to 25 TB per site or groupUp to 25 TB per site or groupUp to 25 TB per site or groupUp to 25 TB per site or groupUp to 25 TB per site or group
File upload limit (per file)100 GB100 GB100 GB100 GB100 GB100 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.

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:

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of members in a teamSee the Teams and channels section of this article
Number of members to use Assignments in a class team200
Number of members to use a OneNote Class Notebook in a class team200

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.

Ms 365 Teams

Tags

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of tags per team100
Number of suggested default tags per team25
Number of team members assign to a tag100
Number of tags assigned to a user per team25

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.

BrowserCalling - audio, video, and sharingMeetings - audio, video, and sharing123
Internet Explorer 11Not supportedMeetings 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 laterFully supported, except no outgoing sharing4Fully supported, except no outgoing sharing
Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versionsFully supportedFully supported
Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versionsFully supportedFully 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 versionsNot supportedMeetings 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 13Not supportedMeetings 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.

Ms Teams 365 A1

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.

Ms 365 Teams Icon

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.

Teams For Microsoft 365 Personal

Operating systems

For information about operating system requirements, see Get clients for Microsoft Teams.