---
title: "Setting a circle to private"
description: "A circle's Privacy tab holds two controls, Operations visibility and Attachments and agreements visibility. Neither one hides the circle from the chart."
category: structure-governance
section: chart-and-circles
tags: [permissions]
type: Tutorial
lastUpdated: 2026-08-05
locale: en
canonical: https://support.talkspirit.com/en/structure-governance/how-do-i-set-my-circle-private
---

# Setting a circle to private


## Setting a circle to private

A circle's privacy is two controls on its **Privacy** tab: **Operations visibility** and **Attachments & agreements visibility**. Each one is set per circle, and the two do not have to match. What privacy never does is hide the circle itself.

> **In summary:** open the circle, click the three dots, then **Settings**, then the **Privacy** tab, and set the two visibility selects. They restrict the circle's meeting reports and working agreements. They do not remove the circle from the chart.

## Privacy does not hide the circle

Anyone who can open Structure sees the whole chart. A private circle keeps its name, its position in the hierarchy, its roles and its members visible to your entire organisation. There is no lock icon, no placeholder and no gap where the circle would be. A member who belongs to no part of that circle sees exactly what everyone else sees.

Privacy restricts what a circle holds, not the fact that it exists. If you need part of your structure to be invisible to some people, no setting in Talkspirit does that today.

## Set the two visibility controls

1. Open the circle you want to change.
2. Click the three dots in the circle header, then click **Settings**.
3. Open the **Privacy** tab.
4. Set **Operations visibility** and **Attachments & agreements visibility**, each to **All organisation members** or **Circle members only**.

Each select saves as soon as you pick a value, and a **Saved** confirmation appears. There is no Save button.

![The Privacy tab of a circle's settings, showing the Visibility Settings card with the Operations visibility and Attachments and agreements visibility selects, both set to All organisation members.](/images/structure-governance/how-do-i-set-my-circle-private/01-circle-privacy-tab.png)

> **Note:** if your organisation has renamed "circle", the second option follows the new word, for example **Squad members only**.

## What each control does

**Attachments & agreements visibility** governs the circle's working agreements. Set to **Circle members only**, a working agreement in this circle can no longer be opened up to the whole organisation: the **Public** option disappears from its sharing options, and any working agreement that was already public drops to restricted access the moment you switch. Only circle members, the author, people granted access individually, and administrators keep access.

> **Warning:** files listed on the circle's **Attachments** tab are not covered, despite the label. Anyone who can see the circle can still list them. Do not rely on this setting to protect a sensitive file.

**Operations visibility** governs the circle's meetings. Set to **Circle members only**, every meeting that already belongs to the circle becomes private in a single pass, past and future, including meetings an organiser had deliberately opened to the organisation. Afterwards only circle members and each meeting's own participants can open its reports.

Two limits are worth knowing before you rely on it:

- The pass runs once, at the moment you switch. Meetings created later take their visibility from your organisation's meeting default and from each meeting's own visibility field, not from this control.
- Setting it back to **All organisation members** does not reopen the meetings it closed. They stay private until someone changes them one by one.

## Who can change these settings

Organisation administrators, and the circle's own circle admins. In the interface the **Settings** entry appears to a wider group than that, so if your change comes back as **Failed to save**, you are in that wider group: ask an organisation administrator or one of the circle's circle admins to make the change for you.

## What's next?

- [Circle Admins](/structure-governance/who-are-circle-admins)
- [Personalising a circle's settings](/structure-governance/personalizing-your-circles-settings)
- [Circles in Talkspirit](/structure-governance/circle-overview)