How do I create a shared channel in Teams?

 

Table of Contents

 

Channel type/feature comparison

 

Features Standard channel Private channel Shared channel
People can be added to the channel without adding them to the team. No No Yes
Channel membership can be limited to a subset of the team. No Yes Yes
Channel can be shared directly with other teams. No No Yes
Channel can be shared directly with its parent team. N/A No Yes
Guests can participate in the channel. Yes Yes No
External participants (B2B Direct Connect) can participate in the channel. No No Yes
Moderation Yes No No
Breakout rooms Yes No No
Copy link to channel Yes No No
Each channel has a dedicated SharePoint site. No Yes Yes
Scheduled meetings Yes No Yes
Planner Yes No No
Bots, connectors, and messaging extensions Yes No No
Supported in class teams Yes Yes No
Tags Yes No No
Analytics Yes Yes No

Things to keep in mind when dealing with shared channels in Teams

  • Only team owners can create a shared channel. Team members and guests can't create them.
     
  • The person who creates a shared channel becomes the shared channel owner and only the shared channel owner can directly add or remove people from it. (You can add more than one owner if you want.) A shared channel owner can add anyone from the organization to a shared channel they created. Members of a shared channel have a secure conversation space, and when new members are added, they can see all conversations (even old conversations) in that shared channel.
     
  • Team owners can see the names of all shared channels in their team and can also delete any shared channel in the team. Team owners can't see the files in a shared channel or the conversations and member list of a shared channel unless they are members of that shared channel.
     
  • Team members can only see shared channels that they've been added to.
     
  • Cloning a team will not clone the associated shared channels.
     
  • You must create shared channels from Teams for desktop or web. The Teams mobile app doesn’t support creating shared channels.
     
  • You can't change a shared channel into a standard or private channel and vice versa. Once you create a shared channel, you can't change the host team.

Shared channel creation

  1. Go to the team you want to create the shared channel for and select More options  More options button > Add channel.

  2. Enter a name and description for your channel.

  3. Under Privacy, select the down arrow on the right, and then choose Shared - People you choose from your org or other orgs have access. Then select Create.

    Note: The default setting is Share this channel with everyone on the team.

  4. Type the names of the people in your org you want to add to the channel and select from the list. To add people outside your org, type their email addresses and select from the list. Then select Share.

  5. To change a Member to an Owner, select the down arrow to the right of Member, and choose Owner. Then select Done.

    Note: People from outside your org can only be members of a shared channel.

Note: If you're a team owner and don’t see an option to create a shared channel, check with your admin.