New Team doesn't have a General Channel

Anonymous
2024-09-03T14:22:01+00:00

I've just created a new Team and during creation I was asked to create the first channel name, I attempted to use 'General' but was told this was already used so I just carried on making the rest of the required channels. Now when I look within 'Manage Team'->'Channels' there is no General channel. It appears it was never created and If I try to create it manually I get the error "The name General is reserved. Try another name."

I have restarted Teams & cleared the Cache but still do not have a General channel.

Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams for business | Teams and channels | Other

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Anonymous
2024-09-03T16:33:25+00:00

Dear Callum Butler,

Good day! Thank you for posting in the Microsoft Community. We will be happy to help you.

It sounds like you’ve encountered a common issue in Microsoft Teams. The “General” channel is indeed reserved and automatically created when a new team is set up. you are right! I tested the same on my end, it seems the General channel no longer automatically created when creating a Team from scratch (a basic team), seems currently to get this General channel created, you need to use the More create team options and choose the "From another team" or "From a template" and use the "Manage a Project" for example.

This behavior will be reported to Microsoft for confirmation, and we will monitor it. We will provide you with an update as soon as we receive it.

Thanks in advance for your understanding! Your patience and cooperation will be highly appreciated.

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  1. Anonymous
    2024-11-27T20:16:01+00:00

    What do you do if you've already done to much work to your Teams channel to create a new one. Is there anyway to get a general back without this workaround? I have hundreds of documents in my Team and don't want to create a new one just to get a General channel?

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  2. Anonymous
    2024-12-03T15:47:37+00:00

    This is incredibly "counter-intuitive" and a poor user experience.

    You appear to be saying there is no way around this apart from creating a completely new team ?!

    Given you represent Microsoft - please can you be definitive when you are responding
    i.e. "I tested the same on my end, it seems the General channel no longer automatically created when creating a Team from scratch (a basic team)"

    "it seems" ?
    >>
    You should either be pointing to something that documents the behaviour "this is the new / expected behaviour" (if that's really what it is) OR acknowledge that this is a bug and its being worked

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  3. Anonymous
    2024-12-03T16:03:34+00:00

    Hello Paul - please can we have an update asap. I have had to re-engineer a business process for one customer and for another who wanted the G channel, we had to revert to Admin creation. This is not on as it is telling the business they now cannot create their teams. Is this really what MS wants when all of the toolkit material is about empowering the end user! Be nice to know progress (if) on a solution) before I re-engineer my biggest process.

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  4. Anonymous
    2024-12-04T19:27:50+00:00

    It was mentioned earlier in another thread (https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/msteams/forum/all/unable-to-create-a-general-channel-from-scratch-in/34600a8c-5aa0-4b09-b220-bc74753ff2bf) that a fix is expected by Q1 2025. The original intended feature, to my understanding, is this one ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=395931 ). I have a few questions regarding the behaviors that will result from this fix:

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