Second Generation of Private Channels Scales Up to New Heights
Boasting a 20-fold increase in scalability and a cloud mailbox to hold a channel calendar, Microsoft is giving Teams private channels a significant revamp in an update that will roll out in late September 2025. The new mailbox is the new home for compliance records for private channels, which means that Microsoft 365 retention policies need a review to make sure that conversations are retained as desired. https://practical365.com/teams-private-channels-2025/Private Channels Just Don’t Get Any Respect
Microsoft launched private channels in November 2019. A lot has happened since and private channels don’t really get much attention these days. That’s a pity because private channels can be very useful in the right situation. I rediscovered this fact recently when working through an issue with a university where private channels were the right answer. Like all technologies, happiness comes from choosing the right tool. https://office365itpros.com/2024/11/08/private-channels-no-respect/
The issue with channel sites (private and shared channels in Teams)
Hi, I'd like to know of your opinions, experiences, practices, decisions you've made concerning private and shared channels in teams. In my company, we are progressively migrating to Teams from Webex. Users have started creating private and shared channels. My own practice and recommendation to users has been to get a new team created when a different list of users need private access to conversations or documents, instead of a private or shared channel. My reasons are as follow: Rigidity: The SharePoint channel site created cannot follow its own direction if needs arise. It is locked with the parent site. Say we want to reorganize teams and work units, and we want to join a SharePoint channel site with a another hub − we can't, at least not easily. And now the rigidity of subsites is brought back! And anyway, the conversations are also locked with the parent team! It can't be made independent. Lack of control: Control is removed once again from us, the admins − Microsoft loves to allow users to do everything they want and foster chaotic environments. We have disabled group creation and sites creation for all but a few in order to manage the information environment, try to restrict the scattering of important documents, and make things clearer for users. But with private and shared channels, end users can now create new SharePoint sites. As the documents management specialist, I can't easily see where documents end up. And when I export the list of sites to Excel, the channel sites don't appear! So I can't really see which sites take a lot of storage space. Lack of features: Let's say the management team of a department created a private channel for management topics in the department team, and after several months of active use, they now decide they'd like to manage tasks in Planner − tasks that should be private to the management team. They can't, should have created a M365 group for that! Once again, it is rigid. Troubles for the admin: I want to apply a change to all SharePoint sites − so I type a PowerShell command that will apply to all sites. But it won't apply to all sites: not the channel sites. Also, ShareGate can't seem to get the access matrix of channel sites − it returns errors for them. However, when I turn to the Web for advice with this issue, I only find appreciation for private and shared channels, and none of my concerns addressed. Apparently, they allow to avoid the multiplication of teams. However, I'm not sure how multiplying channels is better than multiplying teams. With both teams and channels, users can hide or show them, and as a team always have a channel, they can disable notifications. Maybe I should just deal with and accept the rigidity, lack of M365 features and troubles for the admin. Maybe I should approach the control of the information architecture and documents differently. What is your view on that? Did you have any issues with channel sites, and if yes, how do you deal with them? Did you discourage or prevent the creation of private and shared channels? Have you reconsidered your decision? Do you see private and shared channels as a very useful feature, and if so, why? I'm interested in all experiences on this topic and I'm thankful for all answers.
Message regarding Teams private channel being out of space
We have a Team site that is set up with the default 1 TB of storage. This site has at least one private channel. Today, the owners of that private channel received notification that their Team site was out of space. From the Admin console, I could see that it was only using 5% of the storage capacity, but when we look at the user's computer, we see a banner that notifies us that we need to free up space. We emptied the recycle bin (there were a few files in it, but no more than 15). Additionally, from the Teams client, the user (who again, is the owner of the private channel) saw a prompt to add space to the SharePoint site. After walking through both of those steps (emptying recycle bin and adding space to the site) the users were able to once again start modifying and saving the files in that channel. I know the private channels run under their own SharePoint sites. As an Admin, do we have a way to look at the storage for these channels? Is there any documentation on what this size quota is set to when a new private channel is created? I assume that your general channels will pull from the main Team site quota since the content all resides in the same SharePoint site. I was just surprised by this behavior and haven't been able to find documentation specifically on the private channel SharePoint site.
Private channel won't display onenote section, only main class notebook
After creating private channels, I go to add a 'OneNote' tab and include a specific section in the 'Collaboration Space' just for that channel. But it won't ever display the right section, it only ever displays the main Class Notebook. I tried setting it up every possible way: create the private channel, add the tab, create the section right then Create the private channel, but create the section directly through OneNote, and then just select it when adding the tab in the private channel Create the section directly through OneNote, then create the Private Channel, and then select the relevant section when adding the tab The behavior occurs both in the app and through the web-based version of Teams. However, on occasion, the right section will show up, but as soon as you navigate away and try again, it reverts back to only showing the main "Class Notebook". This has happened to me, multiple colleagues, and my colleague's students. Additionally, the behavior occurs on my old Teams from previous semesters, that did previously work properly. Same for my colleague. I posted about this over in the main Teams community, but given the use case thought there may be more help here as well. Over there, they seem to be unable to replicate the problem on their end and so I am wondering if this is an institutional level issue (i.e., our IT folks screwed something up with Sharepoint, etc.)
