A few days I ago I noticed that Microsoft Teams was updated and enabling nativ Windows notifications. This is a very welcome change which helps you to use the Windows notifications instead of the Teams one. At the time of writing this post the feature seems to be in public preview.

This post explains where you can switch on Microsoft Teams notifications to use Windows 10 notification capabilities.

Switch to Windows 10 notifications in Teams

In the settings area of Microsoft Teams on Windows 10 you can go to the notification section and change the notification settings to what you prefer, as depicted below.

Notifications in Windows 10 action center

To make this work your Windows 10 notifications must be turned on. You can configure notifications in Windows 10 in the system’s settings. To go there follow the listed steps below.

• Open Start
• Open settings
• Go to system
• Go to notifications & actions

In this notification area you can furthermore decide which apps are allowed for sending notifications. At this point you should scroll through the senders list and check if Microsoft Teams is listed and enabled to send you notifications. That’s it.

Conclusion, opinion and summary

A better notification integration in Windows 10 was overdue in my opinion. Lately, I was experiencing a disturbing notification behavior so that notifications did not pop up in front of any other open window on Windows 10. This was a little bit uncomfortable because in case I was working with other apps especially in full screen I had to minimize the full screen app to see and answer an incoming message or call. Of course, you might say in case of answering a call, that I could just press a button on your headset or put it on, true. But I’m used to see and decide based on the incoming notification how I’ll deal with it, answering a call now, answering a message now or later or else. I’m not saying that this was not possible, what I’m saying is that lately the native Teams notification behavior took me more time to reach the same goal. By using Windows 10 notifications for Teams the behavior for notifications is better as far as I tested it.

Additional resources

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap Microsoft Teams: Windows native notifications in Teams Feature ID: 66742
• Manage notifications in Teams [Desktop | iOS | Android]
• Change notification and action settings in Windows 10
• Teams User Voice – Integrate with Windows 10 notification center
• What’s New in Microsoft Teams | October 2020