Forum Discussion
How to disable reactions in a Team
Unfortunately, this is indeed not possible. You can disable reactions for meetings, but not for chat messages or channel posts.
The best thing to do here is vote for this feature over at the Feedback portal, where others have already expressed similar concerns. Here's one of the items you can vote on: https://feedbackportal.microsoft.com/feedback/idea/8981245d-4fbe-ed11-83ff-000d3a1ab5c3
Microsoft Teams doesn’t currently offer a way to disable reactions in a Team or chat. It’s a frustrating gap because, as you’ve experienced, reactions can be misused.
Your IT Admin is right—there’s no built-in setting to turn them off yet. The best workaround is to report the abusive behavior through your company’s policies and keep involving HR and IT for support.
Microsoft does update Teams regularly, so hopefully, they’ll add a way to control reactions soon. For now, keep documenting the harassment and lean on HR to handle it.
Thank you for the reply. It's so surprising this is not even an option.