Rename a Microsoft team

To rename or change the description of a Microsoft team:

1. Go to Microsoft Teams (desktop or browser). 
2. Next to the Microsoft team name, click on the ellipse (…) and select Manage team. 
3. At the top of the page that displays, click on Settings. 
4. In the Team details section, click the Edit button. 
5. Make changes to the Team name and/or Description, then click Done. 

Details 

The underlying Microsoft 365 Group that forms the membership service of a Microsoft Team has many different “name” attributes. The three most important names are: 

• Display Name 
• User Principal Name 
• Primary SMTP Address (Primary Email Address) 

Due to the complexity involved with renaming a Microsoft team, UW-IT recommends limiting Display Name changes to only when necessary. If you decide to rename your Microsoft team, we also encourage using a more descriptive name than just “HR” or “IT”, for example, as there are hundreds of HR and IT groups at the UW that may also be using Microsoft Teams. 

That said, it is possible to rename the Display Name for a Microsoft team and the underlying Microsoft 365 Group using the Microsoft Teams interface. This does not update the User Principal Name or Primary SMTP Address, and is relatively safe with no known issues. However, Microsoft frequently makes changes to how Microsoft Teams works and having a Display Name that is different than the User Principal Name and Primary SMTP Address may at some point cause issues. Additionally, there are numerous other interfaces in Office 365 for updating the names of a Microsoft 365 Group, such as Outlook on the Web and Planner, and potential issues for using these interfaces to change names are unknown.

New Microsoft team name changes 

If you experience an error or have a problem trying to rename a recently created Microsoft team, it is likely due to the underlying SharePoint structure having not being in place yet. To speed up that process, do the following:

1. Go to Microsoft Teams (desktop or browser). 
2. Select the affected Microsoft team and then click the “Files” tab at the top. 
   1. It may take a few seconds up to a minute to process. 
3. Once the “Files” page displays with a document library, the required SharePoint structure has been built. 
4. Follow the Rename a Microsoft team steps (above).