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Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams

This article describes some of the limits, specifications, and other requirements that apply to Teams.

Teams and channels

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of teams a user can createSubject to a 250 object limit¹
Number of teams a user can be a member of1,000
Number of members in a team10,000
Number of owners per team100
Number of org-wide teams allowed in a tenant5
Number of members in an org-wide team5,000
Number of teams a global admin can create500,000
Number of teams a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization can have500,000²
Number of channels per team200 (includes deleted channels)³
Number of Private channels per team30
Number of members in a Private channel250
Channel conversation post sizeApproximately 28 KB per post4

1 Any directory object in Azure Active Directory counts towards this limit. Global admins are exempt from this limit, as are apps calling Microsoft Graph using application permissions.

2 This limit includes archived teams.

3 Deleted channels can be restored within 30 days. During these 30 days, a deleted channel continues to be counted towards the 200 channel per team limit. After 30 days, a deleted channel and its content are permanently deleted and the channel no longer counts towards the 200 channels per team limit.

4 28 KB is an approximate limit because it includes the message itself (text, image links, etc.), @-mentions, number of connectors, and reactions.

Messaging

Chat

Users who participate in conversations that are part of the chat list in Teams must have an Exchange Online (cloud-based) mailbox for an admin to search chat conversations. That’s because conversations that are part of the chat list are stored in the cloud-based mailboxes of the chat participants. If a chat participant doesn’t have an Exchange Online mailbox, the admin won’t be able to search or place a hold on chat conversations. For example, in an Exchange hybrid deployment, users with on-premises mailboxes might be able to participate in conversations that are part of the chat list in Teams. However, in this case, content from these conversations isn’t searchable and can’t be placed on hold because the users don’t have cloud-based mailboxes.

Teams chat works on a Microsoft Exchange backend, so Exchange messaging limits apply to the chat function within Teams.

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of people in a private chat1250

Note: For Teams for Government (GCC, GCC High, DoD), the limit is still 100. We’ll update this article when the government cloud limit increases from 100 to 250.
Number of people in a video or audio call from chat20
Number of file attachments210
Chat sizeApproximately 28 KB per post3

1 If you have more than 20 people in a chat, the following chat features are turned off: Outlook automatic replies and Teams status messages; typing indicator; video and audio calling; sharing; read receipts.

2 If the number of attachments exceeds this limit, you’ll see an error message.

3 28 KB is an approximate limit because it includes the message itself (text, image links, etc.), @-mentions, and reactions.

Emailing a channel

If users want to send an email to a channel in Teams, they use the channel email address. When an email is part of a channel, anyone can reply to it to start a conversation. Here are some of the applicable limits for sending email to a channel.

FeatureMaximum limit
Message size124 KB
Number of file attachments220
Size of each file attachmentLess than 10 MB
Number of inline images250

1 If the message exceeds this limit, a preview message is generated and the user is asked to download and view the original email from the link provided.

2 If the number of attachments or images exceeds this limit, you’ll see an error message.

 Note

Message size, file attachments, and inline images limits are the same across all Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses.

Channel names

Channel names can’t contain the following characters or words.

Characters~ # % & * { } + / \ : < > ? | ‘ ” , .
Characters in these ranges0 to 1F
80 to 9F
Wordsforms, CON, CONIN$, CONOUT$, PRN, AUX, NUL, COM1 to COM9, LPT1 to LPT9, desktop.ini, _vti_

Channel names also can’t start with an underscore (_) or period (.), or end with a period (.).

Meetings and calls

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in)250
Number of people in a video or audio call from chat20
Max PowerPoint File Size2GB
Teams keeps meeting recordings that don’t get uploaded to Microsoft Stream, available for local download20 days

Meeting expiration

Meeting typeMeeting expires after this much timeEach time you start or update a meeting, expiration extends by this much time
Meet nowStart time + 8 hoursN/A
Regular with no end timeStart time + 60 days60 days
Regular with end timeEnd time + 60 days60 days
Recurring with no end timeStart time + 60 days60 days
Recurring with end timeEnd time of last occurrence + 60 days60 days

Teams live events

FeatureMaximum limit
Audience size10,000 attendees
Duration of event4 hours
Concurrent live events running in a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization 115

1 You can schedule as many live events as you want, but you can only run 15 at a time. As soon as the producer joins a live event, it’s considered to be running. The producer who attempts to join the 16th live event gets an error.

 Important

Microsoft 365 live event limit increases

To help customers meet rapidly changing communication needs, Microsoft 365 live events will temporarily raise default limits until July 1, 2020, for live events hosted in Teams. The following increases are being rolled out in late April 2020:

  • Attendee limit: events can support up to 20,000 attendees
  • Concurrent events: 50 events can be hosted simultaneously across a tenant
  • Event duration: event length has been increased to 16 hours per broadcast

Presence in Outlook

Teams presence in Outlook is supported on the Outlook 2013 desktop app and later. To learn more about presence in Teams, see User presence in Teams.

Storage

Each team in Microsoft Teams has a team site in SharePoint Online, and each channel in a team gets a folder within the default team site document library. Files shared within a conversation are automatically added to the document library, and permissions and file security options set in SharePoint are automatically reflected within Teams.

 Note

Each private channel has its own SharePoint site collection.

If you don’t have SharePoint Online enabled in your tenant, Microsoft Teams users cannot always share files in teams. Users in private chat also cannot share files because OneDrive for Business (which is tied to the SharePoint license) is required for that functionality.

By storing the files in the SharePoint Online document library and OneDrive for Business, all compliance rules configured at the tenant level will be followed.

Because Teams runs on a SharePoint Online backend for file sharing, SharePoint limitations apply to the Files section within a Team. Here are the applicable storage limits for SharePoint Online.

FeatureMicrosoft 365 Business BasicMicrosoft 365 Business StandardOffice 365 Enterprise E1Office 365 Enterprise E3Office 365 Enterprise E5Office 365 Enterprise F1
Storage1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased1 TB per organization
Storage for Teams FilesUp to 25 TB per site collection or groupUp to 25 TB per site collection or groupUp to 25 TB per site collection or groupUp to 25 TB per site collection or groupUp to 25 TB per site collection or groupUp to 25 TB per site collection or group
File upload limit (per file)15 GB15 GB15 GB15 GB15 GB15 GB

Channels are backed by folders within the SharePoint Online site collection created for the team, so file tabs within Channels share the storage limits of the team they belong to.

Tags

FeatureMaximum limit
Number of tags per team100
Number of suggested default tags per team25
Number of team members assign to a tag100
Number of tags assigned to a user25

Contacts

Teams uses these contacts:

  • Contacts in your organization’s Active Directory
  • Contacts added to the user’s Outlook default folder

Teams users can communicate with anyone in your organization’s Active Directory and can add anyone in your organization’s Active Directory as a contact and to their contact lists by going to Chat > Contacts or Calls > Contacts.

Teams users can also add a person who isn’t in your organization’s Active Directory as a contact by going to Calls > Contacts.

Browsers

Teams fully supports the following Internet browsers, with noted exceptions for calling and meetings. This table applies to operating systems running on desktop computers.

BrowserCalling – audio, video, and sharingMeetings – audio, video, and sharing1 2 3
Internet Explorer 11Not supportedMeetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on IE11 without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client.

Video: Not supported

Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing) 
Microsoft Edge, RS2 or laterFully supported, except no outgoing sharingFully supported, except no outgoing sharing
Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versionsFully supportedFully supported
Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versionsFully supportedFully supported

Sharing is supported without any plug-ins or extensions on Chrome version 72 or later.
Firefox, the latest version plus two previous versionsNot supportedMeetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on Firefox without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client.

Video: Not supported

Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing) 
Safari 11.1+Not supportedMeetings are supported only if the meeting includes PSTN coordinates. To attend a meeting on Safari without PSTN coordinates, users must download the Teams desktop client.

Video: Not supported

Sharing: Incoming sharing only (no outgoing)

Safari is enabled on versions higher than 11.1 in preview. While in preview, there are known issues with Safari’s Intelligent Tracking Prevention.

1 To give and take control of shared content during sharing, both parties must be using the Teams desktop client. Control isn’t supported when either party is running Teams in a browser. This is due to a technical limitation that we’re planning to fix.

2 Blur my background isn’t available when you run Teams in a browser. This feature is only available in the Teams desktop client.

3 Teams meetings on browsers are limited to a single incoming video feed of active speaker.

 Note

As long as an operating system can run the supported browser, Teams is supported on desktop computers. For example, running Firefox on the Linux operating system is an option for using Teams.

For mobile operating systems, we recommend that you run the Teams app, available from the Android and iOS stores. Running Teams in a mobile operating system is supported, but many features are unavailable.

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