First things to know about notifications in Microsoft Teams

This is the who, what, where, and shh! of notification settings in Microsoft Teams. Visit Manage notifications in Teams for more details about how to adjust your notification settings.

1. Notification settings are under Settings and more

Access notification settings by selecting Settings and More

in the top right corner of Teams, then Settings

> Notifications and activity

2. Notification sounds can be on or off

To choose if a sound plays with new notifications and calls, select Settings and more

, then Settings

> Notifications and activity

Check or uncheck the boxes next to the sound options, and choose your preferred notification sounds in the dropdown menus.

3. There are default settings

If you change nothing about your Teams notifications, you'll receive both desktop notifications and activity feed alerts for @mentions, direct messages (chat), and all new conversations and @mentions in the channels and teams that show in your teams list.

4. There are three ways to get notified

The activity feed

You’ll find this in the top left corner of Teams. This is where we’ll let you know what’s happening across your teams and channels.

Then there’s chat

This is where your group and one-on-one conversations happen. As you receive multiple messages, we’ll keep a count of them for you.

Desktop—aka “Banner”—notifications

On Windows, these will show in the bottom right corner of your screen, then move to the Action Center.

On Mac OS, these show up in the top right corner of your screen, then move to the Control Center.

You can also decide whether your desktop notifications show a preview of the message or not. Go to Settings and more

> Notifications and activity

​​​​​​​ > Display > and select Show message and content previews in notifications.

Note: If using Teams on the web, some browsers will only show notifications in the browser tab where you’re running Teams.

5. Things are slightly different on mobile

One of the first things you'll want to do is choose whether to send notifications to your phone Always, or only When I'm not active on desktop. (You're considered inactive after 3 minutes of inactivity.)

The other thing you’ll want to make sure to set are your quiet hours. To do this, select your profile picture in the top left corner of the mobile app > Notifications > Block notifications > During quiet hours.

Then set a specific time of day when you want Teams to hold your notifications—or choose entire days.

6. You can set notifications for chats and channels, too

To manage your channel notifications, go to Settings and more

> Notifications and activity

> Chats and channels. Here you can choose where and how chat and channel notifications appear. ​​​​​​​