6 Best Ways to Turn Off Chat in Microsoft Teams

If you’ve been searching for a way to turn off chat in Microsoft Teams, you’re not alone. Whether you’re a teacher trying to keep students focused, an admin managing a corporate rollout, or just someone hosting a meeting who doesn’t want side conversations flying around, there are actually several ways to do this, and each one works differently depending on what exactly you want to disable.

In this tutorial, I’ll walk you through every method clearly, step by step. No jargon. No confusing admin-speak. Just plain instructions that actually make sense.

Let’s get into it.

What Does “Turn Off Chat” Actually Mean?

Before jumping in, it helps to understand that “turning off chat” in Teams can mean different things:

• Disabling chat during a meeting — so participants can’t send messages in the meeting chat
• Disabling private/one-on-one chats for specific users across Teams entirely
• Hiding a chat conversation from your own chat list
• Muting notifications from a chat so it stops pinging you

Turn Off Chat in Microsoft Teams

Each of these has a different solution, and I’ll cover all of them below.

Method 1: Turn Off Chat in a Teams Meeting (As the Meeting Organizer)

This is probably the most common reason people land on this page. You’re hosting a meeting, webinar, class, or presentation and want to prevent participants from chatting during it.

Here’s how to do it before the meeting starts:

1. Open Microsoft Teams and go to your Calendar.
2. Find the meeting you want to edit and click on it.
3. Click Edit to open the meeting details.
4. At the top, click Meeting options (you’ll see this as a link near the top of the meeting edit screen).
5. In the meeting options page, look for Meeting chat.
6. Click the dropdown and select Off.
7. Hit Apply.

That’s it. Once you save this, no one, including you as the organizer, will be able to send messages in that meeting chat. It essentially becomes read-only.

Method 2: Disable Chat Org-Wide Using Messaging Policies (Admin Only)

If you’re a Teams admin and you want to turn off the ability for certain users — or everyone in your organization — to use private chat in Teams entirely, this is done through Messaging Policies in the Teams Admin Center.

Here’s how:

1. Open a browser and go to admin.teams.microsoft.com
2. On the left-hand menu, click Messaging → Messaging Policies
3. You’ll see a Global (Org-wide default) policy listed. Click on it to edit it.
4. Find the toggle for Chat and turn it Off.
5. Click Save.

This will disable the chat feature for everyone covered by that policy. They won’t see the Chat tab in the Teams navigation bar, and they won’t be able to send or receive private messages.

Want to apply this only to specific users?

Instead of editing the global policy, create a new custom policy:

1. In Messaging Policies, click + Add to create a new policy.
2. Give it a name (e.g., “No Chat Policy”).
3. Turn off the Chat toggle.
4. Click Save.
5. Now go to Users in the left menu, find the specific users you want to apply this to, and assign the new policy to them.

Those users will lose access to the Chat app. When someone tries to message them, Teams will show a notice indicating that an organization policy blocks chat for that user.

Heads up: This is a powerful setting. Use it carefully. Turning off chat completely can disrupt collaboration, especially for teams that rely on quick messages to get things done. It’s usually better to apply this to specific user groups rather than the whole organization.

Method 3: Remove Chat from the Teams App Setup Policy

There’s another admin-level way to hide chat through the App Setup Policy. Instead of disabling the feature entirely, this just removes the Chat app from the navigation bar so users don’t see it.

Here’s how:

1. Go to admin.teams.microsoft.com
2. Click Teams apps → Setup policies
3. Open the Global policy or create a new one.
4. In the Pinned apps section, find Chat and remove it.
5. Save the policy.

After this, the next time affected users open Teams, they won’t see the Chat icon in the left navigation bar. It’s more of a visual hide than a full block — but it does reduce the temptation and accessibility of chat for users who shouldn’t be using it.

Note: This approach is less foolproof than the messaging policy method. Some users may still find ways to access chat through other routes. If you want a hard block, stick with Method 2.

Method 4: Disable Meeting Chat via Admin Policy (For All Meetings)

If you’re an admin and you want meeting chat turned off by default for all meetings in your organization — or for a specific group of users — you can do this through Meeting Policies.

Here’s the path:

1. Go to admin.teams.microsoft.com
2. Navigate to Meetings → Meeting Policies
3. Open the Global policy or the relevant custom policy.
4. Scroll down to Meeting engagement section.
5. Find Meeting chat and change it to your preferred option:
   • Off — disables chat completely
   • In-meeting only for everyone — chat only works while meeting is live
   • In-meeting only except anonymous users — same as above but anonymous users are also blocked
6. Click Save.

As of early 2025, Microsoft added two new “In-meeting only” options to give admins more control over what happens before and after a meeting. This is great for educational institutions or organizations that want tighter control over participant communication.

Method 5: Hide a Chat Conversation in Teams (For Individual Users)

This one is for regular users, not admins. If you have a chat in your list that you want to get out of sight without deleting it, you can simply hide it.

Here’s how:

1. In Teams, go to your Chat list on the left.
2. Hover over the conversation you want to hide.
3. Click the three-dot menu (…) that appears.
4. Select Hide.

The conversation disappears from your chat list. Don’t worry — the chat history is still there. It’ll reappear if someone sends you a new message in that conversation, or you can search for it anytime and unhide it.

Method 6: Mute Notifications from a Chat in Microsoft Teams

Sometimes you don’t want to turn off chat completely you just want it to stop buzzing at you every five minutes. Muting a chat is the answer here.

Here’s how:

1. Go to your Chat list in Teams.
2. Hover over the conversation you want to mute.
3. Click the three-dot menu (…).
4. Select Mute.

The chat will still be there. Messages will still come in. But you won’t get any notification sounds or pop-ups for that conversation until you unmute it. Perfect for group chats that are a bit too chatty.

Which Method Should You Use?

Here’s a quick way to figure out which approach fits your situation:

Your Goal	Method to Use
Disable chat in one specific meeting	Meeting Options (Method 1)
Disable chat for all meetings in your org	Meeting Policies in Admin Center (Method 4)
Block private chat for specific users	Messaging Policy (Method 2)
Hide chat from Teams navigation for users	App Setup Policy (Method 3)
Hide a conversation from your own list	Hide chat (Method 5)
Stop notifications from one chat	Mute chat (Method 6)

A Few Things Worth Knowing

• Admin changes can take time. When you apply policy changes in the Teams Admin Center, they don’t always take effect immediately. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours for changes to propagate across your organization.
• Users on mobile are also affected. Messaging policies and meeting policies apply across Teams on Windows, Mac, web, iOS, and Android — so you don’t need to do anything extra for mobile users.
• You can always reverse it. None of these changes are permanent. You can go back into the same settings and re-enable chat anytime.
• Hiding is not the same as disabling. If you hide a chat or remove it from the nav bar, it’s not truly blocked. Always use messaging policies for actual enforcement.

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