Standard, private, or shared channels in Microsoft Teams

Standard channels are available to all team members in Teams. Most channels are standard channels. If you need a smaller, specific audience for a particular subject, you can use a private channel. Shared channels are for collaborating with people inside and outside your team or organization.

Note: When you create a new team or private or shared channel in Microsoft Teams, a team site in SharePoint gets automatically created. To edit the site description or classification for this team site, go to the corresponding channel’s settings in Microsoft Teams.

Let’s take a look at each type:

Standard channels

They’re open for all team members and anything posted is searchable by others.
By default, all members of a team can create standard channels. Org owners can change this permission and limit channel creation and permissions to certain roles.
You can't convert a standard channel to a private channel and vice versa.

Private channels

These are for discussions that shouldn’t be open to all team members, so you must be invited to join one to view it within a team.
By default, any team owner or team member can create a private channel and add members. Guests can't create them. Your admin can change this permission and limit private channel creation to certain roles.
You can't convert a private channel to a standard channel; when a private channel is created, it's linked to the parent team and can't be moved to a different team

Files that you share in a channel (viewable on the Files tab) are stored in SharePoint. To learn more, see How SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Teams.

Note: Files shared in a private channel are only viewable by the members of the channel and are stored in a separate SharePoint from the rest of the team's files.

Private channel meetings and calls

External guests can join a team's private channel meeting or Meet now call, but there are a few things to know.

They're only able to participate if a member of the private channel sends them a link to join the meeting, or calls them during the meeting to meet now.
During the meeting or call, they'll have temporary access to chat, files, whiteboard, notes, and the participants list (those not in the Outlook invite), but not after.

Shared channels

They're for collaborating with people inside and outside your team or organization.
Only team owners can create shared channels, and only shared channel owners can add members or share the channel with a team.
Only people who are owners or members of a shared channel can access it, so you must be invited to join one.
You can't convert a shared channel into a standard or private channel and vice versa.

Note: Admins must enable B2B direct connect before you can add people outside your org to a shared channel. To learn more, see Collaborate with external participants in a channel.

Note: For more details, see What is a shared channel?.