add owner to a team

Question

add owner to a team

Maryanne Ditter 0

Hi. I can't add an owner to a listed team.

Followed all the instructions, but to no avail.

Please advise.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

Hello @Maryanne Ditter

Thank you for contacting Microsoft Forum.

In order to narrow down the issue and understand it better, would you please clarify:

Would you kindly describe more about the issue to understand it better?
Are you the channel owner of the teams you want to add an owner to?
Is the issue happening to the private channel or standard channel or both?
Kindly share steps that you followed and ended in vain?
Kindly share the screenshot of the issue or error code if any?

In the meantime, I would like to share some information and some steps about adding a team owner:

I would like to share some information about team users types: Team owner, member, and guest capabilities in Microsoft Teams

To make someone an owner of a private or shared channels, you can follow the guide below:

Open Microsoft Teams and go to the team that contains the channel.
Click the More options (⋯) next to the channel name.
Select Manage channel.
Under Members, find the person you want to make an owner.
Click the Role dropdown next to their name and select Owner.

For standard channels, you cannot assign ownership at the channel level. Instead, you can make the person a team owner. You can also view who's an owner of an existing team by doing the same steps:

To the right of the team's name, select More options > Manage team.

Next to the team's name, select Members.
Select the dropdown next to Members and guests to see all team members. The Role column on the right tells you if someone's a team member or team owner. To make someone
You can also make someone a team owner while you're creating a team. When you add team members, choose if each new person is going to be a team member or team owner. Do this by selecting Owner under the Member menu.

However, only owners of the team or channel can promote others to owner status. If you don’t see the option, you might need to ask an existing owner or your IT admin. Your IT admin can grant you the Teams owner roles by navigate to Teams Admin Center.

In the Teams admin center, expand Teams and select Manage teams.

Select the team name under the display name column.
In the Members tab, you can add or remove members and assign owner and moderator roles to members.

You can read about assigning roles via this document: Assign team owners and members in Microsoft Teams admin center

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Answer 2

Since the Teams admin center action produces no response, add the owner with the supported Teams PowerShell cmdlet Add-TeamUser.

Add the owner through PowerShell

In Teams admin center → Teams → Manage teams, enable the GroupID column through Edit columns, then copy the affected team’s GroupID. The GroupID identifies the Microsoft 365 group backing the team.^1^
Open PowerShell and run:

Install-Module MicrosoftTeams -Scope CurrentUser
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

Add-TeamUser -GroupId "<team-group-id>" `
    -User "[Email]" -Role Owner

Replace:

<team-group-id> with the copied GroupID.
[Email] with the user’s organizational user principal name (UPN).

Add-TeamUser adds the account as both an owner and a member of the team’s backing group. The command returns immediately, but Microsoft notes that the Teams client can take 24–48 hours to display the change.^2^

After the command succeeds, check Teams admin center → Teams → Manage teams → team name → Members. The account should appear with the Owner role.

If PowerShell reports an authorization error

The account performing the change needs an administrative role capable of managing Teams, such as Teams Administrator or Global Administrator. A Teams Reader role is read-only and cannot make this change. Microsoft recommends using the least-privileged suitable role rather than Global Administrator.^3^

After the appropriate role is assigned, reconnect so that PowerShell obtains a new authenticated session:

Disconnect-MicrosoftTeams
Connect-MicrosoftTeams

Add-TeamUser -GroupId "<team-group-id>" `
    -User "[Email]" -Role Owner

Alternative administrative path

If Teams PowerShell also fails, manage the backing Microsoft 365 group directly:

Open Microsoft 365 admin center → Teams & groups → Active teams and groups.
Select the group corresponding to the team.
Open Membership → Owners.
Select Add owners, choose the member, and then select Save and Close.^4^

This alternative is relevant because a team created from an existing Microsoft 365 group inherits that group’s permissions.^5^

If both administrative methods return errors, capture the PowerShell error text and the team’s status from Teams → Manage teams; those details are needed to distinguish a permissions failure from a problem with the team or backing group.

References