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How to delete or archive a team in Microsoft Teams
4 min. read
Published onMay 27, 2020
published onMay 27, 2020
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In Microsoft Teams, a team is the center of your experience. People chat, share files and collaborate in one. Over time, though, a team might become redundant and perhaps no longer useful to your organization. Or, you might find that you might have created a wrong team by accident.
That’s when you might want to archive or delete a team in Microsoft Teams. If you’re an administrator, in this guide, we’ll show you how you can do that.
Archive vs delete
Before starting, we’ll explain the difference between archiving a team and deleting a team. Keep in mind that when you archive a team, all activity for that team will stop. It puts all of the data and filesin a read-only mode, and members will still be able to search through and find the old conversations they need. However, no one will be able to start new conversations or reply to posts in a channel, add or remove channels, edit team settings, or add apps.
As an admin, though, you’ll still be able to add or remove members and update roles and you can still view all the team activity in standard and private channels, files, and chats. Archiving is a much less damaging process.
Deleting a team, meanwhile, is a bit more permanent. When you delete a team, team activity in standard and private channels (and associated site collections), files, and chats is also deleted. You can’t directly restore a team that has been deleted, so consider archiving a team instead of deleting it.
How to archive a team
Archiving a team in Microsoft Teams is a quick and easy process. In theMicrosoft 365 Admin center, you’ll want to clickTeamsin the sidebar. This will redirect you to theTeams admin center. From there, you can clickTeamsin the sidebar, followed byManage Teams. You can then archive the team by clicking on it in the list, and choosing theArchiveoption at the top. A dialogue box will appear, and you’ll want to confirm by clickingArchiveonce more.
Once archived, you can bring the Team back at a later point by going back to the Teams admin center. From there, you can select a team by clicking the name, and then selectingUnarchive.
How to delete a team (or restore one)
Deleting a team is similar to archiving one. In theMicrosoft 365 Admin center, clickTeamsin the sidebar once more. This will redirect you to theTeams admin center. From there, you can once more clickTeamsin the sidebar, followed byManage Teams. Simply select the team name, and then selectDelete. A confirmation message will appear. You can then select Delete again to permanently delete the team.
If you want to restore a deleted team, you’ll have up to 30 days to do so. As part of the process, you’ll actually have to restore the Office 365 group that’s associated with the team. Restoring the Office 365 group for a team will restore team content such as tabs, channels, and private channels and their associated site collections. To restore an Office 365 group, you’ll have toinstall the AzureADPreview moduleon Windows and then run a few prompts. We won’t get into those due to technicality, but you canfind out more about it here.
Other tips and tricks
Over the past few months, we’ve been covering Teams extensively. Deleting or archiving a team is just our latest topic. We’ve covered things such asremoving someone from a team,using the Shifts feature, creatingscheduled meetings, and so much more. OurTeams news hubwill have you covered, so feel free to check it out, and let us know how Teams is working for you by dropping us a comment below.
Radu Tyrsina
Radu Tyrsina has been a Windows fan ever since he got his first PC, a Pentium III (a monster at that time).
For most of the kids of his age, the Internet was an amazing way to play and communicate with others, but he was deeply impressed by the flow of information and how easily you can find anything on the web.
Prior to founding Windows Report, this particular curiosity about digital content enabled him to grow a number of sites that helped hundreds of millions reach faster the answer they’re looking for.
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Radu Tyrsina
