Your Guide on How to Mute Teams as a Participant or a Host

With Microsoft Teams reaching 320 million monthly active users earlier this year, you might be one of them reading this article. Then why not take advantage of this software’s full potential?

If you’re among those users, mastering fundamental features like how to mute Teams calls can make all the difference in your productivity. 

Whether you’re attending meetings, hosting events, or just trying to eliminate distractions, knowing the ins and outs of muting functions lets you take full advantage of Teams’ capabilities. Let’s dive into the practical ways you can stay in control during your meetings.

How to Mute Yourself on Microsoft Teams: Mac and Windows

You can use the mute and unmute options on Microsoft Teams for many reasons these days. You may have a webinar-type of call with the management where you only need to speak a few times, and you may want to exclude any sounds from your side when others talk, etc. In short, muting ability is convenient. 

Now, let’s learn how to mute and unmute on your desktop and phone. Whatever device you choose to join your meetings, you should have flexibility with this tool. 

Before the Call

Before you join your meeting or call, there’s an option to switch your microphone on or off. 

Mute Teams During the Call

Next, you can turn your Mic on or off by accessing the meeting controls at the upper right part of your screen. 

If you like using shortcuts, you can switch your Mic on and off using this Teams mute keyboard shortcut Ctrl + Shift + M. That’s for Windows. For Mac, press Command + Shift + M. But before you do so, you need to enable this feature on the desktop app:

• Go to Settings, than Privacy,

• In the privacy setting, Toggle Keyboard shortcut to unmute,

• Now, you can use the shortcuts below to temporarily unmute yourself.

How to Mute on Teams on Phone

Muting yourself during a Microsoft Teams meeting on your phone is easy and helps you stay considerate to others. 

When you’re in a meeting, just tap the screen to reveal the meeting controls. You’ll see a microphone icon—tap it once to mute your mic. To speak again, tap the icon once more to unmute. This way, you can control your audio without disrupting the flow of the conversation.

If you prefer to join a meeting with your microphone muted from the start, you can adjust this setting on the pre-join screen. When you’re about to join a meeting, look for the microphone icon and switch it off before entering. This ensures you’re not accidentally interrupting right as you join.

How to Mute a Teams Chat

Muting a conversation prevents you from receiving notifications while remaining in the chat. The muted conversation will continue to show up in your recent chats. Here’s how to mute a Teams chat:

1. Go to the chat list.
2. Locate the conversation you want to mute.
3. Click “More Options” on the right side, and choose “Mute.” 
4. If you want to know how to unmute on Teams later, simply click “More Options” and select “Unmute.”

Now, we understand how to mute Teams for users. But what about hosts? How do they do that? Let’s find out next. 

How to Mute Someone on Teams as a Host 

Keeping things organized can be challenging if you’re hosting a large meeting or presenting. To reduce random sounds and interruptions, you can turn off participants’ microphones occasionally or at all times. This way, all attendees (but not presenters) will join the meeting with the mic off. When you’re ready for someone, you can simply allow them to enable their mic. 

Mute an Attendee Before the Call on the Desktop

Here’s how to mute or unmute participants of your Teams call before it starts:

1. Go to Calendar and double-click the meeting.
2. Select the More options icon> Meeting options near the top of the screen.
3. Select the Audio  & video button.
4. Turn off the Allow mic for attendees or Allow camera for attendees toggles.
5. Select Save.

Mute an Attendee During the Call on the Desktop

Organizers and presenters have the flexibility to mute microphones or turn off cameras for all participants or specific individuals at any point during the meeting. However, it’s important to note that this feature isn’t accessible if you join the meeting using Teams room devices.

1. In the meeting controls, select the three-dotted More actions > Settings > Meeting options, 
2. Select Audio & video,
3. Turn off the Allow mic for attendees,
4. Select Save.

You can do the same for the attendee cameras in the Audio & Video section if necessary. 

During the meeting, you can also mute specific attendees without switching off everyone’s mics. Here’s how:

1. Select People,
2. In the Participants pane, hover over the person you want to mute,
3. select the three-dotted More actions option, and mute the participant. 

To mute all participants without disabling their mics, select Mute All. 

Before the Call on Mobile

If you join your call on the phone, you can similarly mute all attendees right before the meeting starts. This ensures that their mics are automatically turned off when attendees join, while presenters retain access.

To set this up, open the meeting event in the Teams calendar and select Meeting options. Toggle off Allow mic for attendees?, then click Save.

During the Call on Mobile

You can mute attendees’ microphones during the meeting, and when you’re ready for someone to contribute, you can allow them to unmute.

Organizers and presenters can mute all attendees or individual participants at any point. To do this, open the participant list, select Manage audio, and toggle off Allow attendees to unmute. Attendee mics will be disabled and appear dimmed.

If you just need to mute participants temporarily without restricting their ability to unmute, you can use the Mute All option in the participant list. For individual attendees, simply hold their name, then choose Disable Mic.

Letting Attendees Speak

When someone needs to speak, hold their name in the participant list or main screen and select Allow mic to enable their microphone.

How to Mute Teams Meeting Without Muting Computer

There’s an easy solution if you need to mute a Teams meeting while keeping your computer audio on. While Teams itself doesn’t have a built-in feature to control just the meeting volume, you can use the volume mixer on your computer.

On Windows

For Windows users, right-click the speaker icon on your taskbar and select Open Volume Mixer. From there, find Microsoft Teams and click the speaker icon to mute it. This way, you can silence the meeting while still hearing notifications or other apps.

On Mac

To mute a Teams meeting on your Mac while keeping other sounds active, start by using a third-party app like BackgroundMusic or SoundSource. These apps allow you to adjust the volume of individual applications independently. Once installed, you can find BackgroundMusic in your menu bar. Simply lower or mute Microsoft Teams from there without affecting other system sounds. Alternatively, SoundSource offers more advanced controls and even lets you route audio to different devices if needed.

Optimising Microsoft Teams Practice in Additional Ways

Aside from all the above directions on how to mute Teams, there are extra handy ways to maximize your Teams usage. For example, you can avoid distractions if you carefully tweak your Microsoft Teams notifications and stick with them. Here’s how (see the visual demonstration in the pic below): 

1. Open the Microsoft Teams application and go to Settings > Notifications.
2. On the next screen, turn off notifications for new messages: toggle off Play sound for incoming calls and notifications.
3. Navigate to Chat > Edit and set up your preferred notifications.
4. Navigate to Meetings and Calls > Edit and customize your notifications.

Advanced Microsoft Teams Audio Management and Integrations

Despite the Microsoft Team’s flexibility in noise management, background noise is inevitable. And sometimes, muting the mic is not enough precaution for noise management.  

That’s because today’s hybrid work culture often leads to people working from multiple location types where noise and background distractions are typical patterns. Therefore, additional help from Krisp may come in handy. 

Krisp isn’t just a noise-canceling app—it acts as an invisible moderator, optimizing audio clarity and capturing critical meeting moments in real-time. Detecting and isolating background chatter it allows hosts and participants to focus entirely on the discussion. 

Paired with features like live transcription and screen recording, Krisp creates a cohesive virtual meeting space where technology intuitively understands and adapts to human interaction.

Here are practical ways Krisp’s AI Meeting Assistant can improve noise management for your Teams meetings and calls:

• Krisp eliminates unwanted background sounds, echoes, and other disruptions, ensuring clearer communication for attendees, participants, and hosts.

• Krisp also improves voice clarity by isolating the speaker’s voice, even in noisy environments, maintaining a professional sound.

• It offers real-time 96% accurate AI transcriptions, allowing you to capture every detail of the conversation without missing essential information.

• All notes captured by Krisp are stored in a unified place and are shareable for multipurpose usage. 

These features create a seamless meeting experience for Microsoft Teams users by proactively managing audio quality and preserving meeting insights.

Now, don’t you think it’s high time you tried it? 

Conclusion

Mastering how to mute Teams meetings as a participant or host is essential for maintaining professionalism and keeping meetings on track. Effective audio control ensures seamless communication, whether you’re silencing distractions, managing notifications, or using advanced tools like Krisp. 

With Krisp’s AI-powered features, you can optimize your meetings by eliminating disruptions, enhancing voice clarity, and capturing key moments with accurate transcriptions. So, take charge of your Teams experience—control the audio, embrace clarity, and make your meetings truly productive.

Frequently Asked Questions