How to Mute and Unmute Participants in Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams has become a tough competitor for Zoom, a video conferencing application. The zoom makes it easy to deactivate an individual participant or all members. This might cause you to wonder – does Microsoft Teams offer the same muting capabilities? In this article, we’ll show you how to turn audio on or off for Microsoft Teams meeting attendees or attendees.
The background noise from call members can be quite annoying. For this, calling applications, in particular videoconferencing applications, must let the administrator or the organizer mute all participants.
Let’s see how the mute function works in Microsoft Teams and how you can mute yourself and other participants or participants.
How to mute in a team meeting
You can either mute before joining a meeting, or after joining the meeting. Here are the steps for both.
1. Turn sound on and off after joining a meeting
Here’s how to do it on desktop and mobile apps.
Mute on the desktop
On the desktop application, when you are on a call, you will see the options toolbar at the bottom. Click the microphone icon to mute the sound.
When you mute, you will see that the microphone icon is topped by a bar. To reactivate, click on the same icon again.
Mute Yourself on Android and iOS
To mute during a call, tap once on the screen to display the floating options toolbar. Then tap the microphone icon to mute the sound.
When you have muted, you will see the mute icon (microphone with a bar) at the bottom of the screen. Tap the screen to display the options toolbar. Then tap the microphone icon to reactivate.
2. Turn sound on and off before joining a meeting
Muting yourself before joining a meeting is only possible when you need to join a meeting in progress.
On mobile, when you click the Join button for a meeting, a screen appears. You can see if you are disabled by default or not. To mute the sound, click on the microphone icon.
On the desktop, turn off the toggle next to the microphone icon when you click the Join Meeting button.
How to mute all participants and individual participants
If you are a teacher and you use Microsoft Teams to teach students online, you may want to deactivate all or some of the participants. Fortunately, you can easily deactivate all other participants with just one click.
Who can turn off the sound on Microsoft team call
You should be careful in Microsoft Teams as any member of the team can mute the sound of others during a call. It doesn’t matter whether you created the call or not. At the end of this post, you will find a solution on how to stop or prevent participants from cutting off other members.
Deactivate participants on the desktop
To do this, click on the participant icon in the lower toolbar when you are on a call.
You will see the list of participants. To mute an individual participant, hover over their name and click the three-dot icon. Select Participant Mute.
To mute everyone, click the Cut All option.
Mute participants on the mobile app
When you are on a call, tap once on the screen to display the options toolbar. Then tap on the participant icon at the top. On the next screen, long press the name of the participant you want to deactivate. Select Participant Mute.
To deactivate all members, press Deactivate all.
How to reactivate participants in Microsoft teams
You cannot re-activate the sound for all participants or for individual participants. Participants must reactivate, as indicated above.
Can you turn off sound activation for others
No. You cannot prevent people from reactivating during a group video call.
Important thing to know about mute in Microsoft teams
Muting may seem simple in other applications, but this is not the case with Microsoft Teams. This is because it very much depends on your role in the meeting. There are three roles available in the Microsoft Teams meeting – Organizer, Presenter, and Participant. The Organizer is the one who creates a meeting and has all the rights. By default, all participants are assigned the role of presenter. The presenter has the same rights as the organizer.
Among the other rights of a presenter, one is the possibility to deactivate and delete other participants. Shocked? Well, it’s true.
Anyone can turn off the sound of others in the Microsoft Teams call. This is why many people are faced with the problem when participants deactivate or delete other members. This is common in online lessons, especially when students mute their teacher just for fun.
You may be wondering what is the solution?
Fortunately, there is one. You must replace the role of all other members with Participants. After that, they lose the right to mute the sound and remove other participants. Now only the Organizer and the Presenter (if applicable) can mute the others.
See the next section to change the role of meeting attendees.
How to prevent people from muting other participants
Here’s how to change the role of participants in desktop and mobile apps so they can’t mute other people’s sounds.
Note: The role of the organizer cannot be changed. Only the presenter or an organizer can change the role of others.
Change the role on the desktop
To change the role of participants on the desktop, open the current meeting. Then click on the participant icon at the bottom.
When the list of participants opens, click the three-dot icon next to the name of the person whose role you want to change. Select Create participant from the menu.
You must do this separately for all members. All participants will then be available in a separate section.
Note: The Disable All button can be used for presenters and participants.
Switch roles on Android and iOS
In a meeting, tap the participant icon at the top. Long press on the name of the participant whose role you want to modify. Select Create participant.
Note: If you want to replace the role with the presenter, repeat the same steps, then choose to make someone a presenter.
How to find out who is muted
On the desktop, you will see the mute icon next to the participant’s name during a call. If you cannot see all participants, tap the participant icon in the lower toolbar. Anyone on the right side with the microphone icon with the bar on it means they are mute.
Likewise, you will also see the mute icon with the participant’s name on the Android and iOS apps. To check for everyone, tap the attendee icon at the top. After that, you can see who is muted as indicated by the blocked microphone icon.
Point: Learn how to prevent Microsoft Teams from launching at startup on Windows.
Mute control over Microsoft teams
Microsoft Teams is not just an alternative to Zoom or other similar video conferencing applications. It is an alternative to messaging apps like Slack. So when a call is made, it is for a final purpose. That’s why you don’t have the ability to turn on the sound of others. People have to reactivate.
However, given the popularity of videoconferencing teams, we hope Microsoft will add better features such as turning off other people’s audio and being able to turn off everyone from the start.
Then:
Shortcuts make our lives easier. Discover the best shortcuts that can be used in Microsoft Teams to improve your productivity from the following link.
See also: