zulip/help/include/channel-admin-permissions.md

Organization administrators and channel administrators can see and manage metadata for private channels. However, if they aren't subscribed to a private channel, they cannot gain access to its content, or grant access to others, unless specifically permitted to do so.

This means organization administrators and channel administrators can:

• See and modify the channel's name and description.
• See who is subscribed to the channel, and unsubscribe them.
• See the channel's permissions settings, and modify settings that do not affect content access (e.g., who can post or message retention policy).
• See how much message traffic the channel gets (but not its contents).
• Archive the channel.

However, the following actions require specific permissions.

• Seeing messages and topics: Restricted to channel subscribers, and user who are allowed to subscribe themselves or any user.
• Subscribing yourself or other users
• Modifying settings that affect content access (e.g., making a channel public, or changing who can add subscribers).