How to Use the Activity Feed in Teams (and Stop Missing Mentions)

The Activity feed is the bit of Teams most people glance at and ignore. Used properly, it's a to-do list of everything that needs you: mentions, replies, reactions, missed calls and tasks. Here's how to make it work for you.

Click Activity at the top of the left sidebar. Each line is something that happened to you:

• @mentions — someone named you in a chat or channel
• Replies to your posts
• Reactions to your messages
• Missed calls and voicemails
• Meeting invites and meetings starting
• Being added to a team or chat
• App notifications, such as a Planner task assigned to you

Click any item and Teams takes you straight to the message.

Click the filter icon at the top of the feed:

• Unread — only what you haven't looked at
• @Mentions — the ones that definitely need an answer
• Or type a word to search within the feed

Start the day on @Mentions, then Unread, and you'll have caught everything that matters in a couple of minutes.

Click ⋯ at the top of the feed and choose Mark all as read. The red badge on the Activity icon disappears.

Click the drop-down at the top of the feed and switch from Feed to My activity to see everything you've posted recently. Handy for finding a message you sent and can't remember where.

Not every reaction needs a notification. Go to ⋯ Settings and more > Settings > Notifications and activity and choose, for each kind of activity, whether it appears in the feed, as a banner, both, or off. Turning reactions off keeps the feed to things that need a reply.

The badge says unread but the feed looks empty. Switch the filter to Unread; the item is probably older and further down. Or click Mark all as read.

I missed a mention. Check your channel notifications: if a channel is set to Off, mentions in it still appear in the feed but won't pop up. Set it to All activity or Mentions and replies.

Activity shows things from a team I left. Meeting chats linger. Hide them from the Chat list.

Click Activity, filter by @Mentions, then Unread, and deal with each one. Trim what gets in under Notifications and activity so the feed stays a to-do list rather than a diary of every thumbs-up.