How to use Microsoft Teams: which one you have, then five basics

First: which Teams you have

Microsoft offers two versions under one name, and they share one app. Microsoft Teams for personal use is for chatting, calling and meeting with your own contacts on a personal Microsoft account. Microsoft Teams (work or school) is for coworkers and classmates, on an account your organisation gives you. Microsoft says you can reach both by downloading one app, sign in to both, and switch between them by selecting your profile picture and choosing the account.

Microsoft’s sign-in article says the work version is part of Microsoft 365, so you need a Microsoft 365 Apps for business or Enterprise licence to use it. You sign in with your Microsoft 365 username and password, and depending on your organisation you may be asked for extra verification, such as a code from a phone.

The free personal version has limits that the work plans do not. On Microsoft’s pricing page for home users, read on 22 October 2026, free Teams allows group calls of up to 60 minutes and 100 participants, with 5 GB of cloud storage. Microsoft 365 Personal, at $99.99 a year, raises that to 30 hours and 300 participants. For businesses, the cheapest plan with Teams on Microsoft’s US page is Teams Essentials at $4.00 per user a month, paid yearly, also with 30-hour meetings for 300 people. The figure below puts the four side by side.

Opening it: desktop, browser or phone

1. Windows: select Start, then Microsoft Teams.
2. Mac: open the Applications folder and select Microsoft Teams.
3. Browser: go to teams.microsoft.com and sign in.
4. Phone: install the Teams mobile app, tap it and sign in with the same account.

Microsoft’s requirements page for the work client gives the minimum for each. The Windows app needs Windows 10 version 10.0.19041 or later, and does not support Windows LTSC editions. On a Mac, Teams supports the three most recent versions of macOS. In a browser, Teams for the web runs on the latest three versions of Edge, Chrome and Firefox and the latest two of Safari, but not on mobile browsers. The phone apps cover the last four major versions of Android and the two most recent major versions of iOS.

Chats: one person or a group

Microsoft’s chat article, read on 22 October 2026, starts a conversation like this:

1. Select New message at the top of your list of chats and channels.
2. Enter a person’s name.
3. Write in the box at the bottom of the chat. Format, to the right of your message, opens the formatting options.
4. Select Send, or press Enter.

A group chat starts the same way. Select the down arrow at the far right of the To field to reveal Group name, give the chat a name, then add people in To. Microsoft puts the limit at 250 people. When you add someone to an existing group chat you can choose how much of the history they see, and Teams keeps the whole history: if someone leaves, their messages stay.

Two habits that help. Florida Gulf Coast University’s help desk points out that Enter sends the message, so press Shift and Enter together for a new line. And Microsoft notes you can start a chat with yourself, which is a handy place for drafts and for sending files to yourself.

If you use Teams for personal use, you can still message people who use Teams at work: Microsoft’s page says to type their business email in Search, with the warning that doing so lets them see your email address and that only some functions are available between the two versions.

Teams and channels: the shared rooms

A chat is for the people in it. A team is a standing group, such as a department or a project, and it is divided into channels, one per topic. The two are listed together: in Microsoft’s combined Chat view your list has three sections, Favorites, Chats, and Teams and channels. If you prefer them apart, More list options, then Customize view, lets you choose Separate instead of Combined.

To create a team, according to Microsoft’s article on creating one from scratch: select Chat (or Teams, in the separate view), select New items above your list, name the team, add an optional description, and choose Private or Public. Private limits the team to the people you invite; Public is for a community anyone in the organisation can join. Select Create. The team gets a SharePoint site and a OneNote of its own, you become its owner, and you can own up to 250 teams per account.

Every team starts with one channel, which Microsoft creates and asks you to name. It used to be called General, it can be renamed, and it can never be archived or deleted. More channels come from New items, then choosing the team, a name and a type:

• Standard: open to every member of the team, and anything posted is searchable by others. Up to 1,000 over the life of a team, deleted ones included.
• Private: only the people added, who must already be members of the team. Up to 30 over the life of a team, with up to 250 members each.
• Shared: can include people outside the team, and outside the organisation once an administrator has enabled it. Only team owners can create one, and it cannot later be turned into another type.

Messages in a channel work differently from a chat. Florida Gulf Coast University’s guide explains that replies stay attached to the original message, so use Reply under the message rather than starting a new post; the whole thread can then be followed by anyone who reads it.

Meetings: scheduled or right now

To schedule one, Microsoft’s article says to open Calendar, select a timeslot or New, add the details and the attendees, and make sure the Teams meeting toggle is on. A meeting scheduled in Teams appears in your Outlook calendar, and one made in Outlook appears in Teams. Up to 1,000 invitees can join and take part, and up to 10,000 more can join as view-only attendees once 1,000 are in.

To meet straight away, open Calendar and select Meet now at the upper right. Edit the meeting name, select Get a link to share if others need to join, then Start meeting to reach the pre-join screen. Microsoft notes that Meet now in the calendar needs an Exchange Online mailbox; without one you will not see it. Channels and group chats have their own Meet now as well, and everything shared in the meeting, the chat and any recording stays available afterwards.

Inside the meeting, the controls sit at the top of the window. Microsoft keeps the camera, the microphone and screen sharing fixed there; the rest can be reordered, pinned or moved to the More menu.

Joining a meeting when you do not have Teams

Microsoft’s answer is short: “You can join a Teams meeting anytime, from any device, without signing into a Teams account.”

1. Open the invitation and select the link next to Join, or Join the meeting now.
2. Choose Continue on this browser or Join on the Teams app. “You don’t need to install the Teams app to join the meeting.” In a browser, Microsoft names Edge and Chrome.
3. Allow access to your microphone and camera when asked; you can switch both off once inside.
4. Type your name and join. Some organisations ask for your email address and a one-time code sent to it instead.
5. If you land in the lobby, wait for someone to admit you.

Three more details apply. Microsoft says that if you are not admitted within 30 minutes, you are removed from the lobby and can try again. Other people see a label next to your name: Unverified if you gave no email, Email verified if you used the code, External if you used a Microsoft account. And on a phone the browser route does not exist: the link sends you to the app store, and you tap the link again once the app is installed.

Sharing your screen and your files

Your screen. In a meeting, select Share in the meeting controls and choose your entire screen or a single window. To let people hear a video or a sound you are playing, turn on Include sound before you start; Microsoft warns that every sound from your computer, notifications included, will then be audible. You can hand control of your screen to someone else, with one warning from Microsoft: “Only give control to people you trust.” Stop sharing returns you to the meeting.

Files. Drag a file from your computer into a chat or channel message, or attach it from the compose box. Every chat and channel has a Shared tab that lists the files and links posted in it, and each channel also has its own SharePoint document library. For a file in OneDrive, select OneDrive in Teams, go to My files, hover over the file, select Share, then either Copy link or Sharing settings, where Microsoft lists permissions such as Can edit, Can review, Can view and Can’t download.

Why the guide you found may not match your screen

Teams moves its menus, and the instructions online have not all followed. Three examples from the results Google showed for this question on 22 October 2026:

• The accepted answer to “How to use Microsoft Teams” on Microsoft Q&A, from July 2024, links to an article called Get started with Microsoft Teams. Opened on 22 October 2026, that link redirects twice and lands on Microsoft’s general Teams help page; the article is no longer there.
• A 2024 answer on the same forum, in a thread migrated from the Microsoft Support Community, tells a small business to create a team with Join or create a team in the Teams bar. Microsoft’s current article starts from New items in the chat and channels list.
• University guides written for the classic Teams, such as Franklin Pierce University’s, last updated in March 2021, still describe a separate Teams interface and a Posts tab.

The steps on this page are taken from Microsoft’s support articles as they read on 22 October 2026. If a button is missing, check which Teams you are signed in to first; on a work account, your administrator may also have switched a feature off.