A Team in Rocket.Chat is a group of related channels organized under one umbrella. Teams help you group conversations by project, department, or topic, making collaboration easier and more structured.
For example, your organization might have a Core Team with private channels for leadership discussions, project planning, and updates. By grouping them in a team, managing access and visibility becomes more efficient and secure.
Teams are identified by this icon: ![]()
Benefits of using teams
Simplified access control: Automatically adds new members to all associated channels, removing the need for manual invites.
Clear organization: Keeps conversations structured by department, project, or function, reducing clutter.
Team security and permissions
Teams can be private (invite-only) or public (visible to everyone in the workspace). Each team can include both private and public channels.
You can configure teams with specific settings to control who can view, join, and interact within them.
Read-only teams
Only users with the Post_ReadOnly permission can send messages in read-only teams. Others can view content and, if allowed, react to messages.
To allow reactions,
Go to Team Info > Edit > Advanced Settings
Enable Read-only.
Turn on Allow Reacting, which appears once the read-only option is active.
Broadcast teams
Like read-only teams, broadcast teams allow authorized users with the Post_ReadOnly permission to write new messages while other users can reply to existing messages.
However, it differs from read-only teams in the following ways:
All messages have a reply button that redirects you to the sender's direct message (DM), replying to the message as a quote.
Users can’t react to messages
Once set to broadcast, a team cannot be reverted to read-only mode.
Encrypted teams
Encrypted teams have end-to-end encryption enabled. Only team participants can decrypt and read messages, ensuring secure and private communication. To learn more, see End to End Encryption.
Team information
To access the details of a team:
Open the desired Team from the sidebar.
Click the Team Info
icon from the menu bar to access some details of the team.Click Edit to access and update all the following team details:
Name: The team title, displayed in the sidebar and used in search.
Topic: A short label shown next to the team name, useful for adding context or purpose.
Announcement: A message displayed below the team header for important updates or reminders.
Description: A detailed explanation of the team’s purpose or scope.
Private: Indicates whether the team is invite-only or open to all workspace members.
Read-only: Allows only users with posting permission to send messages; others can view messages but not reply.
Archived: Closes the team to new messages. Archived teams are excluded from search results but remain visible to admins through the Directory.
Password to access: Protects the team with a password. Members must enter the password to join.
Advanced settings
In the Advanced settings section, you can further customize team behavior and permissions:
Hide system messages: Choose which automated messages (for example, join or leave notifications) are hidden.
Automatically prune old messages: Enable automatic removal of older messages based on retention policies.
Override global retention policy: Apply custom message retention rules specifically for this team. Refer to Room Retention Policy to learn how to prune messages in a room.
Mentioning teams
When you mention a team using @teamname, all members of that team who are present in the room are notified instantly. For example, mentioning @engineers alerts only members of that team currently active in the room.
To learn more about managing and organizing teams, see Teams: Efficiently Manage Your Remote Team on Rocket.Chat
The Teams feature in Rocket.Chat streamlines collaboration by grouping multiple channels under one structure. This simplifies membership management, improves access control, and helps teams stay organized.
Next steps
Create a New Team: Learn how to create new teams.
Manage Teams: Edit team information, exit teams, and convert teams to channels.
Manage Team Channels: Manage the channels under a team.