Chat in Microsoft Teams meetings

Most Teams meetings include a chat where meeting participants can share info without disrupting the flow of the meeting.

Note: If you don't see chat in your Teams meeting, contact your IT admin.

Participate in the meeting chat

View and send messages in a meeting chat before, during, and after a meeting. When someone sends a new message, a red dot will appear on Chat Teams Chat Tab icon in the meeting controls.

Icon is second from the left in meeting controls

Note: Chat access before, during, and after a meeting might be limited depending on organizer settings or IT admin policies.

Before a meeting

People invited to a meeting can start chatting with each other before it starts.

To chat before a meeting:

Select Calendar in Teams.
Right-click the meeting you want to chat in.
Select Chat with participants .
Type and send your message.

Messages sent in chat before a meeting will be visible to everyone during and after the meeting.

During a meeting

To chat during a meeting:

Select Chat in your meeting controls.
In the Meeting chat pane, view messages that have been sent and see who’s typing in real-time.
- Select Open in new window to multitask during your meeting.
Type your message in the compose box.
- Select Show Formatting options to insert a link, add bullet points, and more in your message. To learn more, see Format a message.
- Select Emoji, GIFs, and Stickers to send something fun! To learn more, see Send an emoji, GIF, or sticker.
- Select Action and apps to attach a file, schedule a message, and more.
Select Send to send your message in the chat.

If you select Invite someone or dial a number in the People People or Show Participants button pane during a meeting, the people you invite can see the chat from the time you invited them until the meeting ends.

Tip: Want to make edits to your message after you sent it? Hover over a message you sent and select Edit Edit icon . Edit your message and select Done Icon to accept in Teams to update the message in the chat.

After a meeting

After a meeting ends, return to its chat to reference or continue the conversation. Select Chat Teams Chat Tab icon in Teams to find the meeting chat among all your other chats. In the chat list, meeting chats are preceded by the Calendar Teams Calendar tab icon icon and have the same title as the meeting.

Meeting attendees who can access chat after a meeting include:

All meeting attendees of scheduled single-instance meetings.
All meeting attendees of scheduled recurring meetings who are included in the meeting invitation.

Meeting attendees who can’t access chat after a meeting include:

External or anonymous attendees not managed by an org.
Attendees who were forwarded the meeting occurrence or series.
Attendees who were nudged to join the meeting.
Attendees who were manually removed from the meeting chat or chose to leave. To learn more, see Leave or remove someone from a group chat in Microsoft Teams.

People who are external and aren’t invited to a meeting can’t be added directly to the meeting chat before, during, or after the meeting. Adding external people directly to a meeting chat will prompt the creation of a new group chat.

React to a message

Say more with less by sending quick reactions in chat. Hover over a message and select the reaction you want to send. Select More reactions to choose from a full list of reactions.

Screenshot showing quick reaction emoji above a chat message

The reaction you choose will appear in the lower-left corner of the message. You can also select a reaction already on a message to react with that same emoji.

To learn more, see Like or react to messages in Microsoft Teams.

Hide chat bubbles

Minimize distractions during your meeting by hiding chat bubbles that appear in the main meeting window.

To hide chat bubbles:

Select More actions > Settings in the meeting controls.
Select Don’t show chat bubbles .
To hide chat bubbles temporarily, select Mute in the chat bubble.

Image showing a mobile screen with a snoozed chat preview at the bottom.

Chat in recurring meetings

For recurring meetings, the chat continues from one meeting to the next. When participants open their chat window, they’ll have access to messages exchanged in the previous meetings.

Note: If a participant is removed from a recurring meeting series, that participant will lose chat access.

Invite someone to a single occurrence

People invited to a single meeting in a recurring meeting series can participate in the chat with other attendees. They won't see chat history from previous meetings in the series, but they can see and send messages during the meeting they’re in.

To invite someone to one of your recurring meetings but not the rest, make sure you forward the invite for the single instance and not the entire meeting series to ensure chat privacy.

Tip: If you've invited an external participant to be a guest speaker and you want to further limit their access to the meeting chat, you can schedule their presentation as the meeting's last session. The meeting organizer or moderator can then monitor the participant list during the meeting, and if the speaker joins outside their allocated time, they can manually remove them.

Chat in channel meetings

In channel meetings, all channel members can see and add to the chat conversation whether they attend the meeting or not. The conversation will be on the channel's Posts page, under the meeting title.

People who aren’t part of a channel but are invited to a meeting won't be able to use the chat.

Meeting chat notifications

Stay up to date about conversations that occur before, during, and after a meeting with meeting chat notifications. Meeting chat notifications may change depending on your RSVP status.

For single-instance meetings, if you RSVP:

Accept, the meeting chat will be unmuted.
Tentative, Follow, or don’t RSVP at all, the meeting chat will be muted unless you send a message or join the call.
Decline, the chat will be muted and hidden from your chat list unless you send a message, join the meeting, or are @mentioned by someone directly.

In recurring meetings, decline the entire series to hide the meeting chat. If you decline a single instance of a series, the chat will be muted unless you send a message or join the meeting.

Notes:

To find a hidden meeting chat, search for the meeting title or find it in your calendar by turning on Show declined events. You’ll only be able to see events you declined after turning the setting on.
If you change your RSVP status, meeting chat notification settings will update to reflect the latest status.

Meeting chat notification settings

Change your preferences for meeting chat notifications based on RSVP status to only see chats relevant to you.

To change meeting chat notification settings:

Select Settings and more > Settings in Teams.
Select Notifications and activity .
In Meetings :
- Select your preference in the Meeting chat notifications for meetings I’ve accepted dropdown menu.
- Select your preference in the Meeting chat notifications for meetings marked as tentative or no response dropdown menu.

Changes to your settings will take effect immediately.

Mute and unmute meeting chats

Mute and unmute individual meeting chats from your chat list. When you mute a conversation, you’ll no longer receive notifications when someone sends a new message. You can always unmute later.

To mute or unmute a specific meeting chat:

Select Chat in Teams.
Hover over a meeting chat in your chat list.
Select More options .
Select Mute or Unmute .

Chat access

Attendee access to meeting chat varies depending on the meeting type, each attendee’s relationship with the organizer’s org, and how they were invited. Meeting chat capacity also impacts access to chat before, during, and after a meeting. To learn more, see Access meeting chat in Microsoft Teams.

Meeting organizers can also limit meeting chat access or turn it off altogether by modifying meeting options.

Contact lists

If you invite a contact list of more than 150 members to a meeting, they’ll only be able to access chat during the meeting. To give everyone access to the chat before and after the meeting, expand the contact list before you send the invite.

If some people in the contact list are required attendees and the rest are optional, add them to the required attendee field in the meeting invite. Then, select + Optional and add the entire contact list there.

If adding a contact list will make the chat exceed 1,000 people, you won’t be able to add the list.

To learn more about contact lists, see Create, edit, or delete a contact list. To learn more about meeting chat access for contact lists, see Access meeting chat in Microsoft Teams.