Microsoft is unlocking the "Full Potential" of Private Channels in Microsoft Teams: What You Need to Know

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It has been a while since I posted something just about a Microsoft Teams update, as a lot have been Copilot in Teams to be honest. But here is a real Microsoft Teams update I think is worth knowing about, and it involves Security and Compliance as well. Microsoft is rolling out a "major" update to private channels in Teams, starting in late September 2025 and continuing through mid-December. This biggest change in this update is a shift in how private channel data is stored from individual user mailboxes to a dedicated channel mailbox. Not only will this simplifie compliance management, it will also and align private channels with shared channels, making governance and experience more consistent across Teams. This update promises to increase the support up to 1000 channels per team and 5000 members per channel, removing previous limitations. Teams will also allow meetings to be scheduled directly within private channels, enhancing collaboration.  For organizations using Micr...

Microsoft Authenticator lite generally available

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Microsoft Authenticator Lite has been made generally available (post). This is a feature allowing Microsoft Outlook to work as the authenticator app for a user. This is a nice feature for users who are not using MFA, or maybe still use SMS MFA for their login and don't want to install the authenticator app for some reason.

I would of course, recommend to use the authenticator app itself, but admit this can simplify things for users. The feature isn't "brand new", but it has not been supported for the legacy "per user mfa" a lot of organizations are still using. 

If you do not want this new feature available to users, you would have to turn it off, as it seems it will automatically made available to everyone. There is a good description of how to do so in this article. This will be rolling out from late september and for a couple of weeks.