It is not yet possible to freeze time to prevent an event from happening, but it’s plausible to freeze all team activity in the Teams app.
Namely, you have created a team once but don’t need that anymore! Well, archiving that team will freeze all the activity, however, the admin can still add members.
So, read this article as I have revealed the perfect steps to do so. Let’s begin!
How to Archive Team in Microsoft Teams
Without being a service admin of that particular organization in Teams, it’s not possible to archive teams. So, as an admin go to the MS Teams admin center and select the Manage teams option. Then, select the team and hit the Archive button.
It’s been four to five years since Teams added that archive feature, but still they didn’t upgrade it. There are certain limitations to this archive feature. To say, as an admin you can’t archive a smaller component of a team.
Speaking frankly, the admin can’t archive channels, conversations, or shared files of a team. In a word, you must archive the entire team.
So, despite these limitations, if you want to archive a team in MS Teams, follow the below steps.
Here are the steps to archive a team on Microsoft Teams:
- Go to Microsoft Teams admin center.
- Log in to the admin center using your admin account.
- Click on Teams from the left panel.
- Select the gear icon, and click Manage teams from the right upper side.
- Expand the Active option and find the name of the team to archive.
- Click on three dots from the team names right side.
- Select Archive team from the context menu.
- Check the box for Make the SharePoint site read-only for team members, to prevent the team member from editing.
- Click the Archive button from the prompt.
Note: Only a team owner can archive the teams. Members of a team can’t archive or change anything of an archived team.
After that, the selected team will archive at that instance. So, after archiving a team, there are certain limitations and conditions. Such as all activities, meetings, and conversations will get suspended for that archived team.
Plus point is, the admin can still add or remove any member from a team and change a member’s role from an archived team. Last but not least, the admin can restore the archived team at any time.
Moreover, after disabling a team in MS Teams, you may want to disable chat on Microsoft Teams meetings. Well, you can do that by applying a few steps.
How to Make an Archive Team Active
After archiving a team, you may want to reactivate it for managing a project with the same team. After going to the Teams admin center, go to the Teams section and from there select the archived team. Next click on the Restore teams button.
Speaking of restoring a team, sometimes, for certain reasons, you may want to manage certain groups by creating private channels in Teams. The good news is, a user can create private channels in Teams easily.
Now, let’s see the steps to make an archive team active if you want to manage some projects with that group.
Here are the steps to make an archive team active:
- Go to the Teams admin center and login with your admin account.
- Click the Teams option from the left panel.
- Select the gear icon, and select the Manage teams option.
- Click to expand the Archived team’s list under the Active list.
- Select three dots from the right and choose Restore team.
After restoring the archived team, you’ll find that team under the Active team’s list. Once activated, all the members can start their daily activities in the group such as conversations, editing, or sharing files, etc.
Note: Reactivating archived teams is a straightforward process. But you can’t directly restore a deleted team. So, before deleting a team you should archive it first and then postpone the deletion until you’re not sure to delete it.
Apart from this, before archiving or deleting a team, you must save chat history if there are important pieces of information in it. To save the chat, you can export the chat history of Microsoft Teams.
FAQs
How can I find archived teams in Microsoft Teams?
To find archived teams click on the Archived team’s list under the Active team’s list. Under the Archived section, you’ll find all the teams that you have archived until now.
Can members see an archived team?
Yes, team members can visit the archived team, but only see the information. Only the owner of the team can update any content. An archived team becomes read-only along with the channel sites.
How long does a team stay archived?
An archived team will get deleted along with its associated data after 30 days. Microsoft only allows individual team owners to archive a team.
Bottom Line
It’s obvious to send a team to archive status when it serves the main purpose. Sometimes too many useless teams or groups can create a cluttered management system in the Teams app. So, it is a wise decision to keep those groups archived.
In this article, I have laid out simple steps to archive the team for those who are seeking the easiest way to do it. I hope this article serves that purpose successfully.
Feel free to knock in the comment box for additional guidance on Teams. Good luck!
