For more information on changing your groups from Public to Private (or vice-versa) see Make Microsoft 365 groups public or private. ﻿

Neither public groups nor private groups can be seen or accessed by people outside of your organization unless those people have been specifically invited as guests .

Note: Currently, groups created from Outlook on the web are private by default.

When creating a group you'll need to decide if you want it to be a private group or a public group . Content in a public group can be seen by anybody in your organization, and anybody in your organization is able to join the group. Content in a private group can only be seen by the members of the group and people who want to join a private group have to be approved by a group owner.

You can create Microsoft 365 Groups from a variety of tools including Outlook, Outlook on the web, Outlook Mobile, SharePoint, Planner, Teams and more. Which tool you choose to start from depends a bit on what kind of group you're working with. For example; at Microsoft we tend to start from Outlook when we're creating a Group organized around email and calendar. If the Group is for company wide communication we tend to start with Yammer. For chat-based collaboration we'd start our Group from Microsoft Teams.

Owners, Members and Guests

Group owners are the moderators of the group. They can add or remove members and have unique permissions like the ability to delete conversations from the shared inbox or change different settings about the group. Group owners can rename the group, update the description or picture and more. If you're familiar with SharePoint roles then a group owner is a site collection admin.

Tip: It's best practice to have at least two owners for a Group, if you can. That way if one owner is unavailable the other can make changes to the Group.

Group members are the regular users in your organization who use the group to collaborate. They can access everything in the group, but can't change group settings. In the SharePoint world they are site members. For information about adding or removing group members see Add and remove group members in Outlook.

Guests are like group members, but they are outside your organization. By default your users can invite guests to join your group, and you can control that setting. For more information, see Guest access in Microsoft 365 groups.

Select the type of Groups you want to use:

If you prefer the shared inbox mode of collaboration, then the groups experience in Outlook is for you. By creating a group in Outlook you’ll get:

Shared Inbox– For email conversations between your members. This inbox has an email address and can be set to accept messages from people outside the group and even outside your organization, much like a traditional distribution list

Shared Calendar – For scheduling events related to the group

SharePoint Document Library– A central place for the group to store and share files

Shared OneNote Notebook – For gathering ideas, research, and information

SharePoint Team Site– A central repository for information, links and content relating to your group

Planner– For assigning and managing project tasks among your group members

You don’t have to manually create any of those resources; creating the group automatically creates them for you and assigns the necessary permissions for your group members so they can start using them right away.

You can access these resources through the familiar Microsoft Outlook desktop client (2016 or newer), via Outlook on the web, via Outlook 2016 for Mac (shared inbox only), or via Outlook mobile. You'll find your Microsoft 365 Groups in the navigation pane on the left in Outlook desktop or on the Web.

With the new Microsoft 365 Groups hover card, you have quick access to shared group resources. Just hover over a group name in Outlook on the web or SharePoint.

The newest part of our collaboration story is Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is the inner loop for your team – a persistent, chat-based workspace where you can have informal, real-time, conversations around very focused topics or specific sub-groups within the group.

Yammer brings the enterprise social experience to your collaboration. It helps you make new connections and discoveries across your organization. It can help you communicate and discuss ideas company-wide or around common interest areas.

By creating a Microsoft 365 connected group in Yammer you'll get:

Yammer Group – A common place to have conversations and share information

SharePoint Document Library – A central place for the group to store and share files

Shared OneNote Notebook – For gathering ideas, research, and information

SharePoint Team Site – A central repository for information, links and content relating to your group

Planner – For assigning and managing project tasks among your group members

You can access these tools through Yammer in your browser or using the Yammer app on your iOS, Android or Windows Phone device.

After a Group outlives its intended purpose, you can delete it to free up system resources and to remove the group from being listed or displayed. See: Delete a group. If you don't want to have to remember to delete outdated groups your administrator can set expiration policies that will cause old groups to expire and be removed automatically after a specified period of time. See: Microsoft 365 Group Expiration Policy.