Slack to Teams Membership Limitations

Understand channel member limits when migrating to Microsoft Teams.

Last updated: 2025-01-15 Plan & Prepare

Overview

When migrating from Slack to Microsoft Teams, it's important to understand that Teams has specific membership limits for different channel types. These limits may affect how Slack channels are migrated.

Planning Required

Review your Slack channel membership before migration to identify channels that may exceed Teams limits.

Teams Channel Limits

🔒
250
Private Channel
Maximum members
🔗
50
Shared Channel
Maximum teams

Private Channel Limit

250 Member Maximum

Microsoft Teams private channels have a hard limit of 250 members. This is a Microsoft platform limitation that cannot be increased.

Impact on Migration

  • • Slack private channels with more than 250 members cannot be migrated as private channels
  • • Excess members will not be added to the migrated channel
  • • Migration may fail for these channels without proper planning

Identify Affected Channels

Before migration, export your Slack channel list and identify any private channels exceeding 250 members.

Shared Channel Limit

50 Team Maximum

Teams shared channels can be shared with a maximum of 50 teams (including the host team).

Additional Shared Channel Limits

  • • A team can have up to 200 shared channels (including hosted and shared with)
  • • Each shared channel can have up to 50 external participants
  • • Total channel membership still applies

Workarounds

Options for Large Channels

1

Convert to Standard Channel

Migrate the Slack private channel as a Teams standard channel instead. Standard channels inherit team membership and have no separate member limit.

2

Create a Dedicated Team

Create a new team specifically for this group. Teams can have up to 25,000 members, providing much more capacity.

3

Split the Channel

If the content must remain private, consider splitting into multiple private channels organized by department, region, or function.

4

Prioritize Members

If private channel is required, identify the 250 most critical members and migrate only those. Others can be added to a parallel standard channel.

Microsoft Documentation

These limits are set by Microsoft and may change. Check the latest Microsoft Teams limits documentation for current values.

Teams Capacity Summary

Channel Type Member Limit
Standard Channel Inherits team membership (up to 25,000)
Private Channel 250 members maximum
Shared Channel 50 teams maximum

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