How To: Limit Who Can See Files in a Team

Summary

In Microsoft Teams, everyone in a team can open and edit files in its standard channels. Learn when that's a problem and how to keep some files to fewer people with a private channel.

Body

In Microsoft Teams, everyone in a team can open and edit every file in the team's standard channels, including General. That's fine when the whole team should see everything. If some files are only for some people, they need to live somewhere else.

In this article

Who can see what

Where the file is
Who can see and edit it
General or another standard channel
Everyone in the team
A private channel
Only the people added to that channel
Your own OneDrive, shared with specific people
Only the people you share it with

Don't rely on folder permissions

Changing permissions on individual folders inside a team's files is easy to get wrong and hard to keep track of. If not everyone should see something, move it out of General.

Keep files to fewer people

1

Create a private channel

Next to the team name, select More options (…) > Add channel, then choose Private. Depending on the team's settings, a team owner may need to do this.

2

Add only the people who need it

Members of the team aren't added automatically.

3

Move the files

Move the files out of General and into the private channel's Files tab.

Sharing with just one or two people? Share from OneDrive with specific people instead. See How To: Share a File Securely from Teams or OneDrive.

Get help

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Details

Details

Article ID: 140266
Created
Mon 6/27/22 11:37 AM
Modified
Sun 10/25/26 7:08 PM
Audience
Employees
Students