The New Teams client

Microsoft have released a new version of the Teams client and have announced that they will be retiring the old (“classic”) version early next year. The University will be updating all computers that have not already upgraded from 19 February 2024 onwards to ensure that the change is completed by Microsoft’s deadline.

The new client for Windows and Apple Mac computers is faster and uses significantly less resources on your computer.

Upgrade your Teams client now so you have one less thing to do next year – just click on the Try the new Teams toggle to initiate the update. It can be found in the top left corner of Teams.

You will know it's worked because in your menu there will now be a second Teams option with the word New on it.

The new teams client defaults to displaying your list of teams in a tile mode. If you prefer a list mode then this is easy to change:

1. Go to the three dots in the top right of the Teams client 
2. Go to Settings > Appearance and accessibility > Layout
3. Select the option List

You can now change channels so that new messages are at the top of your screen. To do this (this is a per-channel setting):

1. Go to the channel in Teams
2. In the top right select the 3 dot menu
3. Select See new posts at top

• New Teams is faster loading, faster joining meetings and uses up to 50% less disk and memory on your computer
• Future enhancements will only be available for the new Teams client
• Improved ability to personalise the appearance of Teams
• Massive improvements for people who use Teams on multiple organisations, allowing you to seamlessly meet and chat with people in other organisations you are a member of
• Improvements to notifications, including the ability to "mark all as read"

Fixing Windows computers

1. Right-click on the Teams app icon in your taskbar and select Quit
2. Open File Explorer. In the address bar, enter the following: %appdata%/Microsoft/Teams
3. Select the arrow, or press Enter. You will be taken to the contents of that folder.
4. Remove all contents from the folder (the Teams app and your custom settings will remain unaffected). If you encounter messages stating that a specific file or folder cannot be deleted, select Skip
5. Relaunch the Teams app, then right-click on the icon and select Quit.
6. Relaunch the Teams app once more, and you should see the toggle switch.

Fixing Apple Mac computers

1. Relaunch your current client before enabling the “Try the new Teams” toggle to ensure that you have latest changes.
2. If the issue persists, right-click the Teams icon in the dock and select Quit, or press Command (⌘)-Q.
3. In the Finder, open the /Applications/Utilities folder, and double-click Terminal.
4. Enter the following command: rm -r ~/Library/Application/Support/Microsoft/Teams then press Return
5. Restart Teams
6. If you do not see the toggle for new Teams, make sure you have the minimum required versions for Mac and Teams:

• macOS Big Sur (11) or above (including macOS Monterey (12) and macOS Ventura (13) and
• Microsoft Teams (work or school) version 1.6.00.12303 or higher.

This Microsoft link covers the latest list of features that have changed.