Leave, Hide, Delete or Archive a Team

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About this lesson

Learn how to leave a team, hide a team, delete a team, and archive a team.

Quick reference

Leave, Hide, Delete, or Archive a Team

Understand the difference between leaving, hiding, deleting, and archiving a team. 

When to use

Teams we no longer need access to can be hidden, deleted, or archived. Alternatively, we can leave a team at any time. All options will remove the team from the teams list. 

Instructions

If we no longer need to be part of a specific team or we want to remove the team entirely, we have a few options. 

Leave a Team

We can leave a team at any time. Maybe we have moved departments or are no longer working on a specific project so we don't need to see any messages related to the team anymore. 

When we leave a team, we can no longer see that team in the teams list. 

  • Click the cog icon next to Join or create a team. 
  • Find the team in the list. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Select Leave the team. 
  • Select Leave the team again to confirm. 

Hide a Team

We can hide a team from our teams list. This won't delete the team and we can un-hide it at any time. Hidden teams are moved to a new category called 'Hidden teams'. 

  • Find the team to hide in the teams list. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Click Hide. 
Un-hide a team
  • Expand the Hidden teams group in the teams list. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Select Show. 

Delete a Team

Teams that are no longer in use or obsolete can be deleted. Note that this option is only available to the team owner. The team and all of its contents will be deleted. 

  • Click the cog icon next to Join or create a team. 
  • Find the team in the list. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Click Delete the team. 
  • Click Delete the team again to confirm. 

Archive a team

Teams that are no longer in use can be archived. This option is better than deleting as it means all messages and information in the team are retained, but the team is no longer visible in the teams list. We can un-archive teams at any time. 

  • Click the cog icon next to Join or create a team. 
  • Find the team in the list. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Click Archive team. 
  • Click Archive to confirm. 

When we archive a team, a new group will appear called Archived. This is where we can find all archived teams and restore them if we need to. 

  • Expand Archived. 
  • Click the three dots. 
  • Click Restore team.
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  • 00:04 In the final lesson of this section, we're going to talk about leaving,
  • 00:09 hiding, deleting, and archiving teams.
  • 00:13 Now you can leave a team at any time, maybe you've moved apartments and
  • 00:17 this team is no longer relevant, or
  • 00:20 maybe you're working on a completely different project.
  • 00:24 Whatever the reason, leaving a team is very easy.
  • 00:28 And it's worth noting that when you leave a team,
  • 00:31 you can no longer see that team in your teams list, and
  • 00:34 you'll no longer see any messages that are posted to the channels.
  • 00:38 Now in order to leave a team, we need to click on the cog icon right at
  • 00:42 the bottom of the screen, just next to where we have Join or create a team.
  • 00:48 If we click this, it's going to open up all of the teams that either we've
  • 00:53 created, or that were part of.
  • 00:55 And from here, we can leave any of these teams.
  • 00:58 So for example, maybe I'm on a diet and I don't want to attend
  • 01:03 Ben's Friday Lunch Club anymore because he really just goes to
  • 01:08 the local takeaway, and that isn't good for my calorie intake.
  • 01:13 So I'm going to leave Ben's Friday Lunch Club.
  • 01:17 All the way over on the right hand side we have three dots, so
  • 01:21 if we click that, I have a Leave the team option.
  • 01:25 So let's select Leave the team, yes, I'm sure I want to leave.
  • 01:30 And now you'll notice that that team has disappeared from my teams list, so
  • 01:34 very straightforward to leave.
  • 01:36 Now we did look at this before in a previous lesson,
  • 01:40 we can also hide teams and also channels.
  • 01:43 Now if I want to hide a team,
  • 01:45 for example if I want to hide SharePoint Online Training.
  • 01:50 I could click the three dots and simply choose Hide, and
  • 01:54 that again is going to hide the team from my list.
  • 01:58 Now if you're thinking to yourself, well, what if I want to get that team back,
  • 02:02 what if I want to unhide it, where did it go?
  • 02:05 Well, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of your teams list,
  • 02:09 notice that I now have an additional group called Hidden teams.
  • 02:13 When I expand this, it's going to show me any teams that I've hidden, so
  • 02:17 I can simply click the three dots and choose Show.
  • 02:20 What about if I want to delete a team?
  • 02:24 Maybe I'm a team owner and
  • 02:25 I just want to get rid of that team because nobody's used it for about a year.
  • 02:31 And remember, the only people who can delete teams are the team owners.
  • 02:36 So for example, I couldn't go in here and delete the HR Team Hub,
  • 02:41 because I'm not the owner of that team, Ben is.
  • 02:45 If I click the three dots next to this team, notice I don't even have the option.
  • 02:50 But if this is a team that I've created, so really any of these others, when
  • 02:55 I click the three dots, I'm going to have that Delete team option at the bottom.
  • 02:59 And when you delete a team,
  • 03:01 you are permanently deleting it as well as all of this content.
  • 03:04 So all of the channels and all of the chat messages contained within.
  • 03:09 The final option that you have, is to archive a team.
  • 03:13 So maybe a team isn't currently in use but it might be in the future and
  • 03:17 maybe we just simply don't want to delete it,
  • 03:20 we still want to be able to access that information.
  • 03:23 In that kind of scenario, archiving a team is the best way forward.
  • 03:28 Once again, all we need to do here is find a team,
  • 03:32 click on the three dots, and choose Archive team.
  • 03:36 Notice that this says, this will freeze all team activity but
  • 03:40 you'll still be able to add or remove members and update roles.
  • 03:45 So I'm not going to get notifications for this team anymore, but
  • 03:48 the team is effectively still active, it's just in the background.
  • 03:53 So I'm going to say, I want to archive The Social Committee.
  • 03:57 Now notice as soon as I do that, I now get another section just here called Archived.
  • 04:03 So if I expand that and decide that I want to restore this team,
  • 04:08 it's a simple case of taking the three dots, and
  • 04:12 choosing Restore team, to put that back into the teams list.

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