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Summary
This article will outline information regarding using the Chat Feature within a Teams Meeting. This includes settings and best practices.
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The in-meeting chat provides meeting organizers with a space to quickly share files and communicate with the meeting participants. The in-meeting chat mirrors the features present in standard Teams chats, allowing users to format text for sophisticated messages, upload, share, and send files, share images or GIFs with ease.
Meeting chat in MS Teams is persistent (On) by default, meaning it is accessible to all participants. Meeting Organizers and Co-Organizers can manipulate these settings a needed.
- During a Meeting.
- Before and After a Meeting.
If you are the meeting organizer or co-organizer and do not want the meeting chat to be used or active after the meeting ends, you must adjust your meeting options to turn on in-meeting only chat.
Meeting Chat:
- ON - Participants can chat, before, during and after the meeting
- OFF - Participants cannot use the chat, before, during and after the meeting
- In-Meetings Only - Participants can chat only during the meeting. Participants can see the chat after the meeting but will not be able to post anything further. The Organizer does have the permission to post after a meeting has ended.
Who has Chat Access?
- Anonymous and external participants have chat access only while attending a scheduled meeting. If the external participant is a member of an internal Team, they are subject to the Guest rules of the Team set by the Team owner.
- If a participant is manually removed from the meeting or chooses to leave a chat, They won't have access to the chat going forward.
- In reoccurring meetings. the chat does not reset. For recurring meetings, the chat conversation continues from one meeting to the next. When participants open their chat window, they’ll have access to all the messages that were exchanged in the previous meetings.
- Users who use a persistent meeting link to meet with others and you want all chat private, its best to set the Chat to "Off" and simply chat with that individual using the standard chat within MS Teams. These are not tied to any specific meeting and private between you and the other person.
Using Chat During a Meeting
During a meeting, selecting the chat button in upper area of the meeting window will open the meeting chat window to the right of the main screen.
Continue the Chat After a Meeting
Select the Chat menu on the left side of the MS Teams app and choose the meeting chat from the recents list. Note that in the chat list, meeting chats are preceded by a calendar icon and have the same title as the meeting.
Start the Chat Before a Meeting
You can also prep people for an upcoming meeting through a meeting chat (unless the organizer limited the chat to "in-meeting only"). This is ideal if you have materials or communication to share ahead of time. Note, only invited participants would get notifications. People opening a meeting link that weren't directly invited would have to wait to join the meeting to participate in the chat. You must be a meeting organizer or co-organizer to find the chat within the Calendar tab.
- Select the Calendar menu in MS Teams.
- Find and select the meeting event.
- Select Chat with Participants.
Need additional help?
For assistance concerning site creation, content sharing, file synchronization, or other common SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, or Office app activities, we recommend our Microsoft 365 Learning sites:
Learn more about the great tools our Microsoft 365 Learning sites offer!
Visit the Technology Help Desk Support page to locate your local campus contact information or to submit an online technology support request. For password issues you must call or visit the Help Desk in person.