Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams
This article describes some of the limits, specifications, and other requirements that apply to Teams.
Teams and channels
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of teams a user can create | Subject to a 250 object limit¹ |
| Number of teams a user can be a member of | 1,000 |
| Number of members in a team | 10,000 |
| Number of owners per team | 100 |
| Number of org-wide teams allowed in a tenant | 5 |
| Number of members in an org-wide team | 5,000 |
| Number of teams a global admin can create | 500,000 |
| Number of teams an Office 365 organization can have | 500,000² |
| Number of channels per team | 200 (includes deleted channels)³ |
| Number of Private channels per team | 30 |
| Channel conversation post size | Approximately 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. (For more, see How Exchange and Microsoft Teams interact.)
Teams chat works on a Microsoft Exchange backend, so Exchange messaging limits apply to the chat function within Teams.
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of people in a private chat1 | 100 |
| Number of people in a video or audio call from chat | 20 |
| Number of file attachments2 | 10 |
| Chat size | Approximately 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.
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Message size1 | 24 KB |
| Number of file attachments2 | 20 |
| Size of each file attachment | Less than 10 MB |
| Number of inline images2 | 50 |
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.
For more information, see Exchange Online limits.
Note
Message size, file attachments, and inline images limits are the same across all Office 365 licenses.
Channel names
Channel names can't contain the following characters or words.
| Characters | ~ # % & * { } + / \ : < > ? | ' " .. |
| Characters in these ranges | 0 to 1F 80 to 9F |
| Words | forms, 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
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of people in a meeting (can chat and call in) | 250 |
| Number of people in a video or audio call from chat | 20 |
| Max PowerPoint File Size | 2GB |
| Teams keeps meeting recordings that don't get uploaded to Microsoft Stream, available for local download | 20 days |
Meeting expiration
| Meeting type | Meeting expires after this much time | Each time you start or update a meeting, expiration extends by this much time |
|---|---|---|
| Meet now | Start time + 8 hours | N/A |
| Regular with no end time | Start time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Regular with end time | End time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Recurring with no end time | Start time + 60 days | 60 days |
| Recurring with end time | End time of last occurrence + 60 days | 60 days |
Teams live events
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Audience size | 10,000 attendees |
| Duration of event | 4 hours |
| Concurrent live events running in an Office 365 organization 1 | 15 |
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.
For more information about live events and a comparison of Teams live events to Skype Meeting Broadcast, go to Teams live events and Skype Meeting Broadcast.
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.
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. (For more, see How SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business interact with Microsoft Teams.)
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.
| Feature | Microsoft 365 Business Basic | Microsoft 365 Business Standard | Office 365 Enterprise E1 | Office 365 Enterprise E3 | Office 365 Enterprise E5 | Office 365 Enterprise F1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Storage | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization plus 10 GB per license purchased | 1 TB per organization |
| Storage for Teams Files | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group | Up to 25 TB per site collection or group |
| File upload limit (per file) | 15 GB | 15 GB | 15 GB | 15 GB | 15 GB | 15 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.
For more information, see SharePoint Online limits.
Tags
| Feature | Maximum limit |
|---|---|
| Number of tags per team | 100 |
| Number of suggested default tags per team | 25 |
| Number of team members assign to a tag | 100 |
| Number of tags assigned to a user | 25 |
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.
| Browser | Calling - audio, video, and sharing | Meetings - audio, video, and sharing1 2 3 |
|---|---|---|
| Internet Explorer 11 | Not supported | Meetings 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 later | Fully supported, except no outgoing sharing | Fully supported, except no outgoing sharing |
| Microsoft Edge (Chromium-based), the latest version plus two previous versions | Fully supported | Fully supported |
| Google Chrome, the latest version plus two previous versions | Fully supported | Fully supported Sharing is supported without any plug-ins or extensions on Chrome version 72 or later. |
| Firefox, the latest version plus two previous versions | Not supported | Meetings 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 supported | Meetings 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. To learn more, read Allow a participant to give or request control.
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.
Operating systems
For information about operating system requirements, see Get clients for Microsoft Teams.