Participant settings for a Teams meeting

Choose who can bypass the lobby 

You can decide who gets into meetings directly and who should wait to be let in by using the lobby. If you choose to have people wait, you (and anyone else allowed to admit people) will see a list of people in the lobby. From there you can choose whether to admit or deny them. 

Let people calling in by phone bypass the lobby 

You'll see a toggle next to Always let callers bypass the lobby. When this setting is enabled, people calling in by phone will join your meeting without having to wait for someone to admit them.  

Get notified when callers join or leave 

You may want to receive an alert when someone calling in by phone joins or leaves your meeting. Your admin might have enabled these alerts by default.

To change this setting, select the toggle next to Announce when callers join or leave?  

Choose who can present 

See Roles in a Teams meeting for details about selecting presenters and changing someone's role before and during a meeting.  

Prevent attendees from unmuting themselves and sharing video 

To avoid distractions in large meetings, you may want to decide when attendees can unmute and share their video. For details, see Manage attendee audio and video permissions. 

To prevent attendees from unmuting, turn off the toggle next to Allow mic for attendees?

To prevent attendees from sharing video, turn off the toggle next to Allow camera for attendees?

Record automatically 

If you turn on this option, a recording and transcription of your meeting will begin as soon as the meeting starts. For more info, see Record a meeting in Teams. 

Allow meeting chat 

In general, people who are on the meeting invite can participate in a meeting chat before, during, and after the meeting. 

If you select Disabled for this option, there will be no meeting chat at any time. 

If you select In-meeting only, the meeting chat will be unavailable before and after the meeting. 

Turn off copying and forwarding of meeting chat

To protect sensitive information, you can turn off the ability to copy the meeting chat. When this feature is enabled, copying text and images from chat will be turned off. Right-click to copy, ctrl + C, Forward message, Share to Outlook, and Copy link will also be turned off. Please note that this does not prevent screen capture or third-party software from being used. 

This feature is available to all Teams Premium users. It is turned off by default, to enable it: 

• When creating a new meeting or editing an existing invitation, select More options.

• Click the toggle for Turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat.

Allow reactions 

Choose whether people can use live reactions in a meeting. If you choose not to allow it, they will still be able to raise their hand. For more info, see Express yourself in Teams meetings with live reactions. 

Enable Q&A 

Use Q&A to allow attendees to post, reply, and react to questions in real-time during a meeting. Learn more about Q&A in Teams meetings. 

Provide CART Captions 

Communication access real-time translation (CART) captions are human-generated captions, in which a trained CART captioner listens to speech during a meeting and translates it to text. Learn more about CART captions in Teams meetings. 

Enable language interpretation 

Language interpretation allows professional interpreters to translate what a speaker says into another language in real-time, without disrupting the speaker's original flow of delivery. Learn more about language interpretation in Teams meetings. 

Enable Green room 

Use a green room to prepare with other presenters, practice sharing materials, and more before attendees enter the meeting. 

Who can record 

Choose who has permission to record a meeting in Teams. 

Enable end-to-end Encryption 

Use end-to-end encryption in Teams to add an extra layer of security to confidential meetings. 

Allow attendance report 

Enable attendance reports in Teams meetings to view and download details about who attended your meeting, how long they attended, and more.  

Network outages 

In case of a Teams network outage, your meeting options might revert back to the defaults set by your IT admin. If this happens, check your meeting options before your meeting starts to make sure they’re set the way you want them.  

Your settings will return to normal once the outage is resolved. For more help, contact your IT admin. 

Scheduled meetings 

There are several different ways to get to Meeting options for a scheduled meeting:

• In Teams, go to Calendar , select a meeting, and then Meeting options.

• In a meeting invitation, select Meeting options.

• During a meeting, select More actions  at the top of the meeting window, and then Meeting options. A panel will open on the right, and you can change your options right from there.     

• Another way to get there during a meeting is to select Show participants in the meeting controls. Then, above the list of participants, choose Manage permissions .

Instant meetings 

Once you've started a meeting by selecting Meet now  from a channel or Calendar :

1. Choose Show participants in your meeting controls. You'll see a list of everyone in the meeting.

2. Above the list, select Manage permissions to go to Meeting options.

During all other meetings, select More actions  at the top of the meeting window, and then Settings>Meeting options. A panel will open on the right, and you can change your options from there.