Microsoft Teams public preview now lets users reply to specific chat messages

Back in June, Microsoft unveiled some important updates coming to Teams, including the ability to reply to specific chat messages. Today, the company has announced that the quoted reply feature is now available in public preview on the Microsoft Teams desktop apps, and it’s coming soon to the Teams web app.

The quoted reply experience has been available in the Teams mobile app for quite some time, and it’s finally available in 1:1, group, or meeting chats for desktop users. “Quoted reply allows you to select messages in chat that you want to include in your response. It is a great way to add context and clarity with who you are conversing with whether it is a recent message or from one earlier in the conversation,” the company explained in a blog post.

To reply to a specific message, hover over the particular message you want to reply to and then click the ellipsis (. . .) icon. Select the “Reply” option from the list, type your message with the reply embedded and send it. Users will also be able to click on the original quoted message to move to that specific location in the chat history directly. This should eliminate the need to go through the entire conversation manually.

The ability to reply to specific messages is one of the top-requested features from users and it should help to improve asynchronous collaboration between meetings. However, quoted replies are currently restricted to chat messages, and channel conversations and external messages are not supported yet.