Chat in Microsoft Teams meetings
Most Teams meetings include a chat where meeting participants can share info without disrupting the flow of the meeting.
Note: This feature may be disabled in your organization. Check with your IT admin for details.
In this article
Continue the conversation after the meeting
View and send messages
In your meeting controls, a red dot on Show conversation indicates that someone posted a message.
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To view the message, select Show conversation .
The meeting chat window opens to the right of the main screen.
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To send a message, compose it in the text box and then select Send .
You'll have the same options as other chats in Teams, so you can format your text, send pictures and GIFs, use emojis, attach files, and so on. For details, see Chat help.
If you're part of the Teams public preview program, you'll see chats appear in the main meeting window, without navigating to the Show conversation icon.
To hide chats from appearing in the main meeting window, select More actions > Settings . Then, choose Don’t show chat bubbles from the menu options.
On iOS and Android devices, your two most recent messages will appear for a few seconds as previews at the bottom of the meeting screen.
To snooze chat bubbles, select Mute in the chat bubble.
To permanently turn off chat bubbles, select Don't show chat bubbles from the menu at the bottom of the screen.
Note: Chat bubbles are available as part of the public preview program and may undergo further changes before being released publicly. To get access to this and other upcoming features, switch to the Teams public preview.
Continue the conversation after the meeting
After the meeting, you can access the chat conversation in several ways:
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Select Chat on the left side of Teams and choose the meeting in the chat list
Note that in the chat list, meeting chats are preceded by the meeting icon and have the same title as the meeting. -
Select Calendar on the left side of Teams. Right-click the meeting event, then select Chat with participants .
Or you can double-click the meeting event and select the Chat tab.
Meeting attendees with the necessary permissions can continue the conversation they began during the meeting (unless the organizer limited the chat to only during the meeting). These include:
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All meeting attendees of scheduled single instance meetings.
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All meeting attendees of scheduled recurring meetings who are included in the meeting invitation.
Certain meeeting attendees will not be able to continue the chat after the meeting. These include:
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Attendees who are forwarded an occurrence of the series or those who get nudged into an occurrence of that series.
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All external meeting attendees or anonymous users who aren't managed by an organization
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Someone has been manually removed from the meeting chat or chooses to leave. (For more info, see Leave or remove someone from a group chat
Start the conversation before the meeting
You can also prep people for an upcoming meeting through a meeting chat (unless the organizer limited the chat).
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Right-click the meeting event in your Teams calendar.
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Select Chat with participants .
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Type in your message.
Note: Those sent a meeting invitation have access to the meeting chat—before, after, and during the meeting—even if they don’t attend the meeting.
Chat in recurring meetings
For recurring meetings, the chat conversation continues from one meeting to the next. When participants open their chat window, they’ll have access to all the messages that were exchanged in the previous meetings.
Note: If a participant is removed from a recurring meeting series, that participant will lose chat access.
Inviting someone to a single occurrence
People invited to a single meeting in a recurring meeting series can participate in the chat with other attendees. They won't see chat history from previous meetings in the series, but they can send and see chat messages during the meeting.
If you want to invite someone to join one of your recurring meetings but not the rest, make sure you forward the invite for the single instance, not the entire meeting series, to ensure chat privacy.
Tip: If you've invited an external participant to be a guest speaker and you want to further limit their access to the meeting chat, you can schedule their presentation as the meeting's last session. The meeting organizer or moderator can then monitor the participant list during the meeting, and if the speaker joins outside their allocated time, they can manually remove them.
Note: After the meeting starts, people you invite can see the chat from the time they are invited until the meeting ends. You can invite them by adding them where it says Invite someone or dial a number in the participant list.
Chat in channel meetings
For meetings in a channel, all channel members can see and add to the chat conversation, whether they go to the meeting or not. The conversation will be on the channel's Posts page, under the meeting title.
Note: People who are not part of the channel but are invited to a meeting won't be able to use the chat.
More info about chat access
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If you're the organizer of a meeting, you can modify chat settings. Limit chats to take place only during the meeting, not before or after, or turn chat off altogether.
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Up to 1,000 people who receive an invitation to a meeting can access the meeting chat during the meeting, while up to 750 people who receive an invitation to a meeting can access the meeting chat before and after the meeting. The 1,000-person limit for in-meeting meetings and the 750-person limit for pre- and post-meeting meetings includes people who don't come to the meeting.
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If you're adding a list with more than 150 members to a meeting invite, they'll only be able to use the meeting chat during the meeting. If you want everyone to be able to access the chat before and after the meeting, expand the DL before you send the invite.
Note: If more than 20 people attend the meeting, participants will not see the automated message informing them they've joined the chat.
Note: If adding a DL makes the chat exceed 1,000 people, you won't be able to add the list.
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Anonymous and external participants have chat access only while attending the meeting (except in channel meetings, where they will have no access to chat).
Note: If people from federated or non-federated orgs are not invited to the meeting, they can't be added directly to the meeting chat before, during, or after the meeting for security reason. Adding these external participants to the meeting chat will prompt the creation of a new group chat.