Combined Chat and Channels common favorites or custom favorites with items from the the other section

Dear @Botnick, Steven M,

Thank you for posting your question in the Microsoft Q&A forum.

I totally understand your concern. You’re not missing a setting. What you’re describing is a current limitation in Microsoft Teams.

Currently, in the combined Chat and Channels view, Teams does not currently offer a single, automatic “common Favorites” or dashboard section that dynamically brings together chats, channels, group chats, and meeting chats in one place. Favorites and custom sections do exist, but they must be manually curated and do not auto‑populate based on activity or importance.

Today, In the combined Chat view, conversations are organized into three sections: Favorites (items you manually add), Chats (recent 1:1, group, and meeting chats), and Teams and channels (channels grouped by team)

In the separate Chat and Teams view, each view has two sections. There's a favorites section, plus either chat or channels.

For more information, please refer to The new chat and channels experience in Microsoft Teams

There isn’t a way to create one unified, always‑visible section that automatically combines all ongoing conversations across these categories.

As a workaround, here are some ways I recommend you look through:

• Use the combined Chat and Channels view
• Create a custom section (for example, “Active Work”)
• Manually add key chats, channels, and meeting chats
• Enable message previews to reduce unnecessary clicking

In this case, I completely agree with you that having a single, unified Favorites or dashboard‑style section that brings together chats, channels, group chats, and meeting chats would be a significant productivity improvement in Microsoft Teams. Because of this, I strongly recommend submitting this feedback directly to the Microsoft Teams product team. Feedback like yours, especially when it includes real‑world usage scenarios, plays an important role in shaping future improvements.

To ensure your feedback reaches the right teams, I highly recommend submitting your feedback directly to Microsoft Ideas · Community, where our product development team can know your requirements and ideas for product improvements. If enough users raise ticket for the same idea, Microsoft may consider adding this feature in the future. 

Note: As Microsoft Community moderators, please note that we are not involved in product design decisions and do not have direct access to the development roadmap, we want to assure you that your feedback has been acknowledged and is valued.  

I hope this information is helpful. If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out

Thank you for your patience and understanding. If there is any update from Microsoft about this feature, I will reach out to you as soon as possible.

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