Teams Chat File Size Limit: 100 MB or 250 GB?

Microsoft's limits page gives two different numbers for a file attached in a Teams chat: 100 MB and 250 GB. They are not on two competing blogs. They are on the same official page, in two different tables.

If you searched for the Teams chat file size limit and came away with contradictory answers, that is why. Below is exactly where each number lives, what else Microsoft says about it, and which one is safe to plan around.

The limits, at a glance

Where the two numbers actually sit

Both come from Limits and specifications for Microsoft Teams.

In the Messaging section, the Chat table reads verbatim:

Number of people in a private chat	250
Number of people in a video or audio call from chat	20
Number of file attachments	10
File size limitation	100 MB
Chat size	Approximately 100 KB per post

Keep scrolling on the same page to the Storage section, and the last row of that table gives the same figure in every one of its six plan columns:

File upload limit (per file)	250 GB	250 GB	250 GB	250 GB	250 GB	250 GB

A third page repeats the larger figure and ties it to where chat attachments physically go. Where is my Microsoft Teams Free data stored? answers the question "What is the maximum file size limit that I can share in communities?" like this:

"When you attach a file or other data to a message in a chat or community, the file is uploaded to the Microsoft Teams Chat Files folder in your OneDrive. The upload and download sizes for individual files in OneDrive is 250 GB."

And Restrictions and limitations in OneDrive and SharePoint backs that with its own table:

Maximum	Upload	Download
Sync	250GB	250GB
Individual files	250GB	250GB
Files within a zip	250GB	250GB

Why there are two numbers at all

The limits page offers exactly one bridging sentence, at the top of the Storage section:

"Because Teams runs on a SharePoint backend for file sharing, SharePoint limitations apply to the Files section within a Team."

So the 250 GB figure is a SharePoint and OneDrive layer number, and the 100 MB figure is parked in a Messaging table. That much is on the page.

What is not on the page is the boundary between them. The official pages we could find do not state which upload path each value governs — so treat any confident explanation of the form "100 MB applies to files you drag into the message box, 250 GB applies to the Files tab" as somebody's guess, including if you read it here. The page prints two values in two tables and leaves it there.

The practical stance: plan around 100 MB. It is the smaller number, it is the one printed under the heading that literally says Chat, and being wrong in that direction costs you a compression pass rather than a failed send in front of a group chat. Check the official limits page before you rely on either figure — it carries its own revision dates.

What to do when you hit it

Video is what pushes people over. Microsoft's own storage planning guidance states "The size of a one-hour recording is 400 MB", which means a single hour of meeting footage is already several times the 100 MB figure before you add anything else. (More on that in how big a Teams recording actually gets.)

The fix is to shrink the file before Teams sees it:

This runs in the browser tab — the file is read from disk, re-encoded locally, and handed back. Nothing is uploaded to a server, so there is no second upload limit in the way of fixing the first one. If you want the full set of knobs instead of a preset, compress video exposes them.

One more sentence worth having on hand when you are tempted to send the raw file to somebody outside the org: Microsoft's guidance on sharing recordings states "External sharing isn't designed for the distribution of large files or a large number of files." That is the vendor's own recommendation, not a workaround.

Platform-specific gotchas

Ten attachments per message, not just one size cap. The Chat table lists "Number of file attachments 10", and the page's footnote adds: "If the number of attachments exceeds this limit, you see an error message."

Emailing a channel is a third path with a third number. That table caps message size at 24 KB, allows 20 file attachments, and limits the size of each file attachment to "Less than 10 MB", with 50 inline images. Microsoft notes these "are the same across all Microsoft 365 and Office 365 licenses" and that "Emailing a channel isn't available in Teams for Office GCC/GCCH/DOD organizations." There is also throttling: "The limit is 6 emails per 10 seconds per channel per user and 8 emails per 10 seconds per tenant per user."

Big group chats fail for a reason that has nothing to do with size. A separate troubleshooting article covers chats with more than 100 participants: "When you try to share files in a Microsoft Teams group chat or meeting chat that contains more than 100 participants, the message might not be sent successfully when you select Send." The stated cause is the default sharing setting People currently in this chat, which produces a Specific people link — and Microsoft writes, "we don't recommend using this link when you want to share files with more than 100 users."

No SharePoint, no file sharing. The limits page is blunt: "Users in private chat also can't share files because OneDrive for Business (which is tied to the SharePoint license) is required for that functionality."

Characters in the filename can kill an upload instantly. OneDrive and SharePoint reject these in file and folder names: " * : < > ? / \ |. Leading and trailing spaces are not allowed either, and the same page notes that "Some organizations don't yet support ⁠#⁠ and ⁠%⁠ in names."

FAQ

What is the file size limit for a Teams chat attachment? Microsoft's limits page prints "File size limitation 100 MB" in the Chat table and "File upload limit (per file) 250 GB" in the Storage table of the same page. Plan around 100 MB, and verify on the official page before relying on either.

Why do I see 250 GB quoted everywhere else? Because two other official pages repeat it: the Teams Free storage article says "The upload and download sizes for individual files in OneDrive is 250 GB", and the OneDrive and SharePoint restrictions table lists 250GB for individual files both ways. Those pages are describing the storage layer that Teams sits on.

Which number applies to a file I drag straight into the message box? The documentation we can cite does not say. It gives both values without defining their scopes, so the only safe answer is to test against the smaller one or ask your admin. See the limits hub for the same pattern on other platforms.

Can I email a big video to a Teams channel instead? Not a big one. The Emailing a channel table caps each file attachment at "Less than 10 MB" — an order of magnitude below the chat figure. See when a Teams recording is too large to email.

How much storage does Teams Free give me? "The amount of free storage for you to upload and share documents, PDFs, and other data on Microsoft Teams Free is 5 GB." Microsoft's FAQ adds that once you reach it, "you can no longer attach files to messages," though existing shared files stay accessible.

Shrinking the file is almost always faster than getting an exception from an admin. Browse all Clapr tools — they run in your browser, so nothing you compress for a chat ever leaves your machine.

Figures cited from Microsoft's Limits and specifications page, the OneDrive and SharePoint restrictions article, and the Teams Free storage article, checked 16 September 2026. Verify against the official pages before relying on them.