Changing privacy settings in Microsoft Teams

Tags visibility

Overview

This article is designed to guide Microsoft Teams users through the process of setting a team's visibility from public to private.

  • Public will allow access to all University of Oregon users to join your team. 
  • Private will only allow Team Owners to add Members.

The University of Oregon global default setting upon team creation is Private.

From public to private

The team, Bradleyr test (pictured below), is currently set to Public.

Test team set to Public view.

Having a public team means that all files can be found or promoted via Microsoft Outlook or Office 365 Online. For this example, one public file in this Team is called findme.png.

The file, findme.png, within the test team files tab view

Ginamarie is a non-team member with no additional permissions to my file, was able to search via Office 365 Online, and find my document.

Office 365 Online search results for findme.png

To prevent this from happening moving forward, go into your team's settings, select the three-dots more options menu, and select Edit Team...

Select the Options menu, then Edit team (highlighted)

Then switch the Privacy option from Public to Private – this allows users to secure or promote files as desired. Click Update to save the setting.

Privacy menu highlighted with Private selected.

Once converted to a Private Team, Ginamarie (still a non-team member) can no longer discover my files within this team. To test, Ginamarie searches by name for findme.png once again and recieves this error. My files within this Private Team are now secure.

Office 365 Online search results for findme.png, nothing is found.

The team, Bradleyr test (pictured below), is currently set to Public.

Test team set to Public view.

Having a public team means that all files can be found or promoted via Microsoft Outlook or Office 365 Online. For this example, one public file in this Team is called findme.png.

The file, findme.png, within the test team files tab view

Ginamarie is a non-team member with no additional permissions to my file, was able to search via Office 365 Online, and find my document.

Office 365 Online search results for findme.png

To prevent this from happening moving forward, go into your team's General channel and select the Files tab. Select the three-dots more options menu, and select Open in SharePoint.

Teams Files, Open in SharePoint option highlighted

Then select the gear icon in SharePoint and choose Site information.

Site information option

Go to the Privacy settings and select Private from the drop-down menu. Click Save to continue.

Privacy settings drop-down menu

Once converted to a Private Team, Ginamarie (still a non-team member) can no longer discover my files within this team. To test, Ginamarie searches by name for findme.png once again and recieves this error. My files within this Private Team are now secure.

Office 365 Online search results for findme.png, nothing is found.

Additional Resources

For more resources about Microsoft Teams, please consult our Teams knowledge base articles.

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Details

Article ID: 140406
Created
Mon 2/28/22 12:05 PM
Modified
Fri 9/6/24 2:08 PM

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Microsoft Teams is a communication and collaboration service that is part of Microsoft Office 365.