Microsoft Teams - Disable ability to post

[TheRobins]

Morning all,

 

Been looking at teams policies for what seems like hours, Is there any way or policy to stop users or members more importantly from being able to create and reply to posts in a team.

 

Most of what I have read have said no its cannot be done, but looking to be proved wrong. 

 

Thanks, 

[machy]

Is this what you are looking for? 

 

or a more central policy? 

[TheRobins]

Thats it, Moderation policy to apply to all channels, trying to get people to do it one by one just wouldnt work

[MYK-IT]

You could try changing the permissions of the 'Channel'.

 

For example,

• Enable 'Channel Moderation'
• Assigning 'Who are the moderators?'
• Assigning 'Who can start a new post?'
• Under Team Member Permissions, disable 'Allow members to reply to channel messages'
• When creating a post, within options change 'Who can reply' to 'You and moderators'

 

[TheRobins]

Thats basically what I need to do, its trying to find a way of doing it for nearly 800 channel without getting cramp. 

[buzzard]

54 minutes ago, TheRobins said:

Thats basically what I need to do, its trying to find a way of doing it for nearly 800 channel without getting cramp. 

You should be able to Powershell this to loop through each channel and configure this. I'd be surprised if this setting isn't covered. If I get a chance I'll see what I can knock up

 

A quick AI search is giving 

# Connect to Teams
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

# Replace with your actual team and channel ID/name
$teamId = "your-team-id"
$channelId = "your-channel-id"

# Set channel moderation to allow only moderators to post
Set-PnPTeamsChannel -Team $teamId -Identity $channelId -UserNewMessageRestriction OnlyModerators

So you could wrap this in a loop and then run Set-PnPTeamsChannel against each team. 

 

EDIT:
so a quick copilot result would be :- (please test first!!)

# Install and import Microsoft Teams PowerShell module
Install-Module -Name PowerShellGet -Force
Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams -Force
Import-Module MicrosoftTeams

# Connect to Microsoft Teams
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

# Get all teams
$teams = Get-Team

# Loop through each team and update moderation settings
foreach ($team in $teams) {
    Write-Host "Updating moderation settings for: $($team.DisplayName)"
    Set-Team -GroupId $team.GroupId -AllowUserEditMessages $false -AllowUserDeleteMessages $false -AllowOwnerDeleteMessages $true
}

Write-Host "Moderation settings updated to allow only owners to manage messages."

 

Edited June 13, 2025 by buzzard
added content

[TheRobins]

15 minutes ago, buzzard said:

 

so a quick copilot result would be :- (please test first!!)

 

Thanks, you would be suprised how many would skip that step.

 

I didnt think about co-pilot, There are a couple of staff teams that still need the feature, so may even try it with a CSV report of the teams to do.

 

I will have a play about now. 

[buzzard]

14 minutes ago, TheRobins said:

I didnt think about co-pilot, There are a couple of staff teams that still need the feature, so may even try it with a CSV report of the teams to do.

 

This was the first time I used it for a PS script, I'm old now and am used to doing it all by hand! 

[TheRobins]

Its a godsend, I very rarely need PS and know the bits I need to, Use it for managing my hyper v storage clusters. 

 

I am now creating a very fancy script, with email reporting and a weekly run to catch any new groups

 

Thanks for heads up. 

[buzzard]

No worries, I've been here a long time and not posted much so its great to be able to contribute!

[TheRobins]

It all looked good, but after all that it doesnt look like it is currently supported, even when trying it via the Graph API.

 

Even in the end CoPilot said it cannot be done. 

 

Thanks for the tips, will leave it till next week and have a fresh go at it.

[machy]

Second link seems promising 

 

Manage messaging policies in Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

 

Teams for Education Policy Wizard to easily apply policies for safe learning - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

[TheRobins]

Sadly Moderation isnt included in any of the policies. 

 

From what I read the MS reply is, Teams was designed to be like this, allowing members to post and reply to do their job. 

 

It does allow the channel owners to set by hand, but no policy or scripting seems to adjust this. https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/change-moderator-roles-and-settings-in-a-channel-in-microsoft-teams-6ac54758-3440-4f6a-9bd5-cebf97cb7ea6

[Ironside]

Wait, do you want to ban students from typing messages in teams? You can set up policies for different user groups in Teams admin center. 

[TheRobins]

Its the posting facilities within a team you are a member off. The policies do not cover this function, I have disabled all messaging features yet they are still able to start a post and all reply. The content owners (teachers) can set Moderation mode within each of their teams which they stops them being able to post or reply within a team. However, with over 900 teams I cannot see everyone wanting to do this. There are both powershell methods of setting moderation settings via either the Teams powershell module or Graph module. I have tried extensively to try these methods of powershell scripting and also come up against a brick wall. Further reading suggests that its possible this function has been removed from the functionality for some unknown reason. 

 

I will try again maybe this afternoon to look at the Moderation settings again, or if some magician can say "its in your teams admin portal, your not looking in the right place"

 

Thanks, 

[buzzard]

2 hours ago, TheRobins said:

Its the posting facilities within a team you are a member off. The policies do not cover this function, I have disabled all messaging features yet they are still able to start a post and all reply. The content owners (teachers) can set Moderation mode within each of their teams which they stops them being able to post or reply within a team. However, with over 900 teams I cannot see everyone wanting to do this. There are both powershell methods of setting moderation settings via either the Teams powershell module or Graph module. I have tried extensively to try these methods of powershell scripting and also come up against a brick wall. Further reading suggests that its possible this function has been removed from the functionality for some unknown reason. 

 

I will try again maybe this afternoon to look at the Moderation settings again, or if some magician can say "its in your teams admin portal, your not looking in the right place"

 

Thanks, 

Sorry that didn't work what where the issues you came across when trying to set the policies via PS?

[Space_Munkey]

It's so frustrating sometimes, how simple moderation tasks from an administrator point of view have not been programmed in to Teams or just not been given any thought.

 

I have seen a lot of people make the "It's a behaviour issue" argument regarding similar things like this before, but students are like lemmings. if one of them figures something out, the rest of them start doing it, so generally the only option (for us edu-ers anyway) it to outright block or remove functionality that isn't necessary to teaching...

 

[bjohnny42]

Did you ever get a resolution for this. Apart from the "Its a classroom management issue"?

[TheRobins]

No. To be fair we have pretty much stopped using teams anyway. It was potentially something that could be done with an A5 licence but we didnt go any further with it. 

[Gheedn]

On 16/06/2025 at 10:23, TheRobins said:

Its the posting facilities within a team you are a member off. The policies do not cover this function, I have disabled all messaging features yet they are still able to start a post and all reply. The content owners (teachers) can set Moderation mode within each of their teams which they stops them being able to post or reply within a team. However, with over 900 teams I cannot see everyone wanting to do this. There are both powershell methods of setting moderation settings via either the Teams powershell module or Graph module. I have tried extensively to try these methods of powershell scripting and also come up against a brick wall. Further reading suggests that its possible this function has been removed from the functionality for some unknown reason. 

 

I will try again maybe this afternoon to look at the Moderation settings again, or if some magician can say "its in your teams admin portal, your not looking in the right place"

 

Thanks,  This write-up nails what many SAP projects miss https://aqua-cloud.io/user-acceptance-testing-in-sap/ —real people workflows. It emphasises planning UAT early, building end-to-end test scenarios, and using good tools to track defects. It feels practical, not just theory, and that could save a lot of pain post-go-live.

Unfortunately, Microsoft has limited moderation control through PowerShell and Graph in some recent updates, which might explain why your scripts hit a wall. If moderation per channel isn’t scalable, try checking Teams admin center → Teams policies → Messaging policies again, as Microsoft occasionally reassigns settings there. Also, ensure global policies aren’t overriding team-level moderation. A Teams service update may have temporarily disabled the functionality you’re referencing.