How to show, hide and lock teams and channels in Teams

With Microsoft Teams, we can divide workspaces into various teams and channels. However, you may find yourself with the sidebar cluttered and difficult to navigate. That is why it is important that you know how to show, hide and lock teams and channels in Microsoft Teams.

One of the great benefits of Microsoft Teams is that it's quite easy to create teams and channels. In this way we can divide the work areas, give detailed permissions on who can see and manage access to documents. We can handle it however we want.

The problem is that the number of teams and channels we create can quickly become a problem, getting to the point where it's hard to find one. This happens more than anything else in a corporate environment where multiple people can add you to teams or channels.

Fortunately, Microsoft Teams provides us with a number of tools so that we can solve this problem. This way we can control which teams and channels we can see. In this article, we'll look at how to organize the Teams sidebar.

Organization of Microsoft Teams teams

The first thing we will do is order the equipment. We can do it in similar teams or maybe in alphabetical order, so we can find them quickly when we want.

To do this we simply have to hold down on a team, drag and drop it. We can do this to organize them however we want.

Hide teams we don't need to see in Microsoft Teams

Once we've sorted the list correctly, it's time to hide those teams we don't want to see. It's quite normal to have several teams that we don't pay much attention to, especially the ones we've been added to.

To hide these teams, we will simply have to click on the three dots icon that appears on the right side of the team in question and a new menu will appear. Here we will have to select "Hide".

This will create a new section called "Hidden Teams" in which all the teams we are hiding will appear. This new section can be minimized by clicking on the date on the left side of "Hidden Equipment".

This way we won't see the equipment in question unless we click that arrow, if we do, all the equipment we have hidden will be displayed.

How to hide channels in Microsoft Teams

Just as we can have teams we never watch, the same thing happens with certain channels. What we will do is click on the icon of three horizontal dots that appear on the right side of the channel that we almost never see. A new menu appears in which we will have to choose "Hide".

What it will do is create a new section which will say "1 hidden channel". As you can imagine, if you decide to hide multiple channels, “2 hidden channels”, “3 hidden channels” and so on will appear.

In case you want to see these hidden channels, simply click on the arrow pointing to the right, right next to the hidden channels.

How to add important channels in Teams

You can also pin important channels in the sidebar, those channels that we watch all the time. To do this, we will simply have to click on the icon with three horizontal dots on the right side of the channel we want to set.

A new menu appears and we will simply have to press the "Set" option. What this does is create a new section at the top of the sidebar with the channels we pin. You can add as many channels as you want, they will always appear at the top.

In case you want to remove a locked channel, simply click again on the three dots on the right side and select "Unlock". Locked channels are always visible, regardless of whether they are hidden or not.

To keep things tidy, it would be best to hide each team by clicking the arrow on the left side of it. This way you will have everything in order.

But as you can see, it's relatively easy to keep everything in order in Teams. Thanks to this simple tutorial you now know how to show, hide and lock teams and channels in Microsoft Teams.