New file sharing experience in Microsoft Teams

Microsoft is updating the file sharing and access control experience in Microsoft Teams to make it similar to the experience with other Microsoft 365 apps. We had announced this feature last fall but delayed the rollout to ensure the best customer experience. We apologize for any inconvenience that this delay may have caused.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 51230 
• Timing: mid-March through mid-April 2021
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization

With this update, when users share a file from within Teams (desktop/web), they will have the option to create sharing links that provide access to:

• anyone
• people with existing access
• people within your organization
• specific people, including those in a 1:1 chat, group chat, or channels.

Before users share a file in a chat and channels, they will be notified if recipients don't have permission to view the file. The user can change permissions before they share the file (if they have permission to do so).

What you need to do to prepare

Teams honors the sharing controls defined in SharePoint. For example, if external sharing is disabled in SharePoint, then it is disabled in Teams as well.

The default file link permission in Teams will be the same that is set at tenant level, unless that setting has been overridden at the respective SharePoint site level.

Review your file sharing options in the SharePoint admin portal to ensure that they align with the requirements in your tenant.

Learn more

• Manage sharing settings in SharePoint and OneDrive
• Sharing files in Microsoft Teams