Teams Features Hidden in Plain Sight: Right-Clicks and Pinning Applications

Microsoft Teams doesn’t always tell you what you can do in it’s interface. Since it is a kind of web application we have used to use left click around different menus. However, there are some features in Teams that will make your life easier if you right-click on them. And I am not talking about selecting text and copying it off using right-click. That was of one of the first uses but using right-click to open a text context menu is quite rooted in our mouse-arm so I didn’t pay much attention to it. At least for me. In case you didn’t know: yes, you can select Teams message text and right-click to open a menu with copy.

Do you know a right-click function I missed? Please let me know!

Activity Feed

If you right-click the notification text you can open the same menu as with clicking … -menu. Right-click is of course a lot quicker way since you don’t have hit those three dots with a waving mouse-hand. And did you notice – you can set the notification read/unread but also if the notification came from channel you can go directly to channel notifications menu from here!?

Filter

Activity feed has also other hidden feature: The filter shortcut. If you right-click the filter icon you get directly to filter your activities by type, instead of first left-clicking filter and then the three dots menu.

Chat

When at chat you can right-click on the chat/person name or text to open the three dots menu. Just like with activity feed.

.. and the Chat filter works also with right-click!

Also – did you know you can start a new chat by right-clicking the Chat app in the left rail? It is a lot easier than trying to aim at the small start a new chat left of search box.

Teams

The most obvious right-click works also here: right-click on top a team or channel name and it will open the three dots menu directly.

You can also right-click on top of tab names to open tab’s menu. You can’t do this on Posts or Files-tab, but for all other ones this works. It is way faster and easier than first opening the tab and then clicking tab name again to open the menu.

You can also choose which Message Extensions (team channel applications) are visible in the new message toolbar. You can unpin and pin any apps you added to the team.

This also applies to private chat message toolbar.

And finally if you open Files-tab you can right-click on file name to open it’s context menu. I am sure many of you already know this since it is pretty common feature across Windows and Office family.

Calendar

So far I found/noticed only one feature for right-click in the calendar: do something with a meeting in your calendar. This is also quicker than opening the actual meeting.

Applications

If you open the left rail three dots (…) menu you can see all the apps that are pinned to your Teams left rail (the one with Activity, Chat, Teams, Calendar etc are). In those cases where you have installed application to yourself you can remove it by right-clicking the application and choosing Uninstall.

And if you go to Apps-menu you can also do a few things with right-clicks

Copy link makes it is to let people know what application to install, since it opens the application page directly.

And if you have uploaded your own applications to Teams you can right-click on top of the app to open possibility to update or delete it.

Pinning applications to left rail.. and customizing your left rail

Since pinning applications also uses right-click I am including this in the same post. The pinning feature is not available on all tenants – out of four I have found this on one only.

Pinning is simple. Open the three dots menu (…) on the left rail, choose application and right click it. You can then left-click on Pin to attach it to your left rail.

As you notice, the icon looks a bit different when it is on the left rail.

If you are unhappy with apps new location you can drag & drop it to your preferred slot with the standard press left mouse button & drag & release.

And when you start testing you can actually drag & drop any of the apps – including Activity, Chat, Teams, Calendar, Calls and Files to any order you like.

And to make Pin apps even more fun – you can unpin any application from the left rail.

In case you really like it you can minimize the left rail. However, I don’t recommend going to this kind of extremes. In case you never use Files-menu via Teams then you can Unpin it. It is still found with other apps in … menu so it takes two clicks to get there instead of one.

Reference:

Nopanen, V. (2020). Teams features hidden in plain sight: right-clicks and pinning applications. Available at: https://myteamsday.com/2020/01/29/teams-features-hidden-in-plain-sight-right-clicks-and-pinning-applications/ [Accessed: 17th February 2020].

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