How to find archived teams in Microsoft Teams

Before you start

Use an account with the Teams Administrator role, which manages the teams in the organisation. Microsoft says the Teams Reader role can't view team management in the Teams admin centre. The example passes no permission or scope: its access is the signed-in account's role.

Know what archiving does. Microsoft says archiving stops all activity in the team and archives its private channels too, while people can still view its channels, files and chats. Whoever archives a team can also make its SharePoint site read-only for members. The examples read and export; they archive, restore or delete no team.

Option 1

Find archived teams with PowerShell

Install the module once, then connect and export the archived teams with their owners.

# Install once, if the module is not already installed.
Install-Module MicrosoftTeams -Scope CurrentUser

$ErrorActionPreference = 'Stop'
Connect-MicrosoftTeams | Out-Null
try {
    $teams = @(Get-Team -Archived $true)
    $report = @(foreach ($team in $teams) {
        $owners = @(Get-TeamUser -GroupId $team.GroupId -Role Owner)
        [pscustomobject]@{
            Team = $team.DisplayName
            GroupId = $team.GroupId
            Visibility = $team.Visibility
            MailNickName = $team.MailNickName
            Owners = ($owners.Name -join '; ')
            OwnerCount = $owners.Count
        }
    })
    if ($report.Count -eq 0) {
        Write-Output 'No team is archived.'
    } else {
        $report | Sort-Object Team |
            Export-Csv -Path './archived-teams.csv' -NoTypeInformation -Encoding utf8
        Write-Output "$($report.Count) archived teams exported."
    }
} finally {
    Disconnect-MicrosoftTeams
}

The CSV has 1 row per archived team. The script reads each team's owners with Get-TeamUser, 1 call per team, so a tenant with many archived teams takes a while. An archived team with no owner left can be restored only by an admin, so OwnerCount of 0 is the row to look at first. To list the active teams instead, change -Archived $true to -Archived $false.

Check 1 team

Reconnect with Connect-MicrosoftTeams, then read 1 team by its group ID. The export above disconnects when it finishes.

# Run while connected to Microsoft Teams. Replace the example group ID.
Get-Team -GroupId '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000' |
    Select-Object DisplayName, Visibility, Archived

Option 2

Review archived teams in the admin centre

1. Sign in to the Microsoft Teams admin centre for the correct tenant.
2. Go to Teams > Manage teams.
3. Read the Status column, which shows Active, Archived or Expiring for each team. If it isn't shown, select Edit columns and turn it on.
4. Select an archived team's name to see its owners, members and channels.
5. Leave the page without choosing Archive or Restore.

This suits a quick look at a few teams. For a list you can keep, with each archived team's owners beside it, use PowerShell or a report.

Common questions

Can people still open an archived team?

Yes. Microsoft says people can still view all the activity in its standard and private channels, files and chats. They can't post in it. Unless the team's SharePoint site was made read-only when the team was archived, members can still edit its files there.

Why are an archived team's members still changing?

Archiving freezes the team's activity, not its membership. Microsoft says owners and Teams administrators can still add or remove members and update roles.

Which teams should be archived?

Teams nobody uses any more are the usual candidates. To find them, see how to find inactive teams in Microsoft Teams.