"Show Channel Owners" button for private channel does not work for Team Owners who are not channel members – bug or by design?

Question

"Show Channel Owners" button for private channel does not work for Team Owners who are not channel members – bug or by design?

HOUD R 20

Environment

Microsoft Teams (new Teams client, latest version)
- Same behavior in the browser version.
- User role: Team Owner of the team, but not a member or owner of the private channel in question

Steps to reproduce

Create a team and add a private channel; the Team Owner is not added as a member/owner of this private channel.
In the team's channel list, locate the private channel.
Open the channel's context menu / channel details, where the button/dialog "Show channel owners" is displayed.
Click the button.

Expected behavior The dialog displays the owners of the private channel. Since Microsoft Teams provides a dedicated button/dialog specifically for showing channel owners (as opposed to the member list), the expectation is that a Team Owner can identify who is responsible for a private channel without being a member of it - I mean he can delete the or archive the channel even. I have also seen this working in the past.

Actual behavior The button does not work / no channel owners are displayed for a Team Owner who is not a member of the private channel. If I would be at least a member of the private channel the button is not appearing.

What support has said so far Second-level support referred me to the documentation (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/AlchemyInsights/adding-members-to-private-channels + https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/private-channels) stating that Team Owners who are not members of a private channel cannot see its files, conversations, or member list. However, that passage addresses a different scenario: my report is not about the member list, but specifically about the channel owner display, for which a dedicated button exists in the UI. I could not find any statement in the documentation that the channel owner display is intentionally restricted as well – the documentation only mentions the "member list." (On reddit somebody also recommended this way to see the owners > https://www.reddit.com/r/Office365/comments/19dbrdf/is_there_a_way_team_ownersmembers_can_see_private/)

Questions

Is the "Show Channel Owners" display for private channels intentionally restricted for Team Owners who are not channel members (by design)? If so, is there official documentation explicitly covering the owner display (not just the member list)?
If it is by design, isn't the presence of a visible but non-functional "Show Channel Owners" button itself a bug that should be reported? + I remember seeing the owners back in the day.
If it is not by design: is this a known issue, and is there a fix or workaround for Team Owners to identify the owners of a private channel without joining it?
Is my tenant the only one, where this "wrong button" is displayed?

Any clarification or pointer to explicit documentation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Leal, Homero 5 Reputation points

2026-07-24T13:22:48.11+00:00

What if you don't know who is the private channel owner?
HOUD R 20 Reputation points

2026-07-27T08:36:34.3866667+00:00

@Leal, Homero It seems like the product owner team does not care about it ;)

It's such a thoughtless dead end. 1. You may delete a whole channel without knowing who the private channel owner is. 1. A couple of months ago I was able to click on that button and see the owners. I was able to contact them to check if archiving or deleting the channel was OK. 1. The button in it's original intent made sense, but today it's deactivated (by mistake?) and/or forgotten to be removed.1. And: Nobody ever communicated that the feature will disappear. :(

1 answer

Your answer

Leal, Homero 5 Reputation points

2026-07-24T13:22:48.11+00:00

What if you don't know who is the private channel owner?
HOUD R 20 Reputation points

2026-07-27T08:36:34.3866667+00:00

@Leal, Homero It seems like the product owner team does not care about it ;)

It's such a thoughtless dead end. 1. You may delete a whole channel without knowing who the private channel owner is. 1. A couple of months ago I was able to click on that button and see the owners. I was able to contact them to check if archiving or deleting the channel was OK. 1. The button in it's original intent made sense, but today it's deactivated (by mistake?) and/or forgotten to be removed.1. And: Nobody ever communicated that the feature will disappear. :(

Answer 1

Jess-Q 12,700 Microsoft External Staff Moderator

Hi @RHOUD

I tried this myself and saw the same thing. When a Team Owner who isn't part of a private channel clicks "Show channel owners," the list comes up empty.

To see who owns a private channel, you need to be inside the channel. Owners are just members with extra control, so they're part of the channel's member list. Since a Team Owner who isn't a member can't see the member list, they can't see the owners either which is why it shows up blank. So, the empty list is normal, not a fault with your account.

It's understandable that the button showing up here feels a bit unexpected, as Microsoft user, I'd really encourage you to submit feedback directly to Microsoft about this experience. Your voice matters and it helps the Teams team understand what needs to be improved. You can do this right from the Teams app by selecting Help > Give feedback, or via the Ideas · Community platform, this allows others to see and upvote your suggestion and helps our product development team better understand user needs and prioritize improvements. The more voices they hear, the greater the chance we’ll see enhancements in future updates.

Please note that as forum moderators, we are not directly involved in product design decisions and do not have access to the development roadmap. However, we want to assure you that your feedback has been acknowledged and is truly valued.

In the meantime, the workaround to see who the owners are is through the Teams admin center (you'll need admin access):

Open the Teams admin center
Go to Teams > Manage teams
- Pick the team with the private channel
Open the Channels tab
Click the private channel to see its members and owners

If admin access isn't an option, the other way is to ask the channel's current owner to add you as a member.

I apologize for the inconvenience and if you have any other questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask.

Note: Please follow the steps in our documentation to enable e-mail notifications if you want to receive the related email notification for this thread.

HOUD R 20 Reputation points

2026-07-20T08:12:52.1266667+00:00

Thank @Jess-Q for the detailed feedback.

As an Teams admin I am always able to look up the names, but not the general users in the company. Some time ago they were able to see the owners by clicking on that button. Now it disappeared.

I hope the invisibility of the member list to a Team owner (not a member of the private channel) does not mean, he cannot see to owners list, because those are in the end two different permission or security groups.

Did you ever see the feature working? In our company at least two people saw it working.
Jess-Q 12,700 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-20T14:37:20.97+00:00

Hi @RHOUD,

On the button itself, I went ahead and tested this on my own account as well, and I wasn't able to get the owners to display either. Since it's showing up the same way outside your tenant, it doesn't look like something specific to your environment. It also doesn't match what your two colleagues saw previously, so it appears something may have changed on the product side.

As I mentioned above, the most effective next step at this stage would be to submit feedback directly through Teams via Help > Feedback (or … > Feedback, depending on your version). That sends it to the product team so the behavior can be logged and considered for future updates.

As a forum moderator, I don't have a way to change how the feature behaves or escalate it directly to engineering, so submitting feedback is the best path from here.
HOUD R 20 Reputation points

2026-07-20T16:29:27.3066667+00:00

@Jess-Q , Thanks a lot for verifying and I completely understand and appreciate your role. I sent the update via the button in the Teams App and will continue doing so and hope all ;) who experience do that as well.

Thanks a lot for pointing out a way to the product team.
Jess-Q 12,700 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-07-21T10:10:07.2233333+00:00

Hi @RHOUD,

I'm glad I could point you in the right direction for submitting feedback about this. Hopefully it gets addressed in a future update