add people to chat with history

The chat-history option appears only when adding someone to an existing group chat; adding someone to a one-to-one chat creates a new group chat and cannot include the original one-to-one history.^1^

Add someone with history

In Teams for desktop or web:

1. Open the existing group chat.
2. Select View and add participants in the upper-right corner.
3. Select Add people.
4. Enter the person’s name or email address.
5. Choose how much chat history to include.
6. Select Add.

On mobile, open the group chat, tap the participant names at the top, select Add people, enter the names, choose how much history to include, and tap Done.^1^

If the history option is still absent

Check which of these cases applies:

• One-to-one chat: History cannot be transferred when converting it into a group chat. Create the group chat, but the new participant will not receive the earlier one-to-one conversation.
• External participant: An external user can be added to an existing group chat only if that chat already contains at least one external participant. Otherwise, Teams creates a new group chat instead. Adding the person as a guest may be an alternative your Teams administrator can arrange.^2^
• Meeting chat: People in your organization can be added directly, and the person adding them chooses how much history to share. People outside your organization cannot be added directly to an existing meeting chat; Teams creates a separate group chat instead.^3^
• Access or compliance restriction: If Teams will not add the person, external communication settings, organization-to-organization restrictions, or compliance policies may be responsible. Contact your Teams administrator to check the applicable policy.^2^

References

1. [Mobile](https://support.microsoft.com/teams/chat/chat-with-others-in-microsoft-teams)
2. Add or invite people outside your org to a chat in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Support
3. Access meeting chat in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Support