Adding multiple team members at once to a private Teams channel needs to be simplified

Question

Prior technical solutions shared for adding multiple team members at one time to a private Teams Channel, such as using 'PowerShell' is excessive and seems plausible that functionality similar to that available for adding multiple users at one time to be able to access a SharePoint site should be mirrored & enabled within MS Teams functionality (noting that providing access to 10 to 120+ persons at one time is easily accomplishable in the SharePoint site-space by simply copying and pasting a list of email addresses 'add-member' area, whereas MS Teams does not presently 'digest' the exact same list of email addresses when attempting to add multiple users at one time to a private Teams channel)....ultimately, can the 'bulk-access' SharePoint functionality be enabled similarly in MS Teams to this end?

Answer 1

Hi @Chadd Martin, 

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum. 

According to your concern, unfortunately, Microsoft Teams does not currently have the native "copy and paste list of email addresses" functionality for bulk adding members to a private channel as SharePoint does. The reason is due to differences in architecture: 

• Team is built on a Microsoft 365 Group. The membership of this group controls access to Team itself, the associated SharePoint site, Planner, etc. SharePoint's "Add members" panel is essentially interacting with this M365 Group and is designed to handle large member lists. 
• Meanwhile, a private channel is a separate, security-trimmed space. Crucially, it creates a brand new, separate SharePoint site collection behind the scenes. Its membership is managed independently from the parent Team's M365 Group. Up to now, Teams client interface for private channels has been built for small-scale, manual additions only. 

However, until now Microsoft has not implemented this feature natively in Teams and no public announcements in the roadmap either. Still, we’re optimistic about future enhancements. With the ability to paste a list of emails into a bulk "Add Members" field in Teams for private channels would not only improve admin efficiency but also reduce reliance on scripting and align Teams with SharePoint’s user experience.  

Because of that, I strongly recommend you share your feedback directly with the Microsoft engineering team via Microsoft 365 Feedback Hub → Send Feedback and describe your suggestion in detail. Your input plays a vital role in shaping the future of Microsoft products.   

Note: As community moderators, we kindly ask for your understanding that our access to internal development details is limited. Our primary role is to guide users toward the appropriate resources and support channels. While we may not have influence product design decisions and have limited access to internal development details, we’ll continue doing our best to support you within the scope of our responsibilities.     

Thank you for your understanding and corporation. Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out.  

Looking forward to your response.