Chat in Microsoft Teams meetings

In this article

View and send messages

Continue the conversation after the meeting

Start the conversation before the meeting

Chat in recurring meetings

Chat in channel meetings

More info about chat access

View and send messages

In your meeting controls, a red dot on Show conversation  indicates that someone posted a message.

• To view the message, select Show conversation .

The meeting chat window opens to the right of the main screen.

• 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. 

Continue the conversation after the meeting

After the meeting, you can access the chat conversation in several ways:

• 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: 

• All meeting attendees of scheduled single instance meetings.

• 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:

• Attendees who are forwarded an occurrence of the series or those who get nudged into an occurrence of that series.

• All external meeting attendees or anonymous users who aren't managed by an organization

• 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).

1. Right-click the meeting event in your Teams calendar.

2. Select Chat with participants .

3. Type in your message.

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.

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.

More info about chat access

• 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. 

• 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.

• 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. 

  
  If some people in the DL are required attendees and the rest are optional, put those required on the Required attendees line of the invite and add the entire DL to the Optional line.

  Note: If adding a DL makes the chat exceed 1,000 people, you won't be able to add the list.

• 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.

Related topics

Change participant settings for a Teams meeting