Get started with Teams Walkie Talkie

Overview

You may already use a walkie talkie-like device at work to coordinate with coworkers, ask for immediate assistance, contact security, and so on. Like traditional walkie talkies, you press and hold a button to speak on Teams Walkie Talkie and release the button to listen.

Unlike traditional walkie talkies, Teams Walkie Talkie is on your phone and integrated with your Teams environment.

The Walkie Talkie main screen showing the user speaking

Note: You need to press Stop listening to stop receiving transmissions.

Open Walkie Talkie

If you're using Walkie Talkie for the first time in Teams, you'll see a red dot notification on the Walkie Talkie icon in the Teams app bar.

The Walkie Talkie icon showing the red dot notification

To open Walkie Talkie, tap Walkie Talkie in the Teams app bar.

The Walkie Talkie icon in the Teams app bar

If you don’t see the Walkie Talkie app when you open Teams, swipe up from the bottom of your screen or tap More More options button to access it.

Pin Walkie Talkie for quick access

If Walkie Talkie isn't already pinned to the app bar in Teams, here’s how to do it.

In Teams, swipe up on from the app bar and tap Edit.
In Edit navigation, drag Walkie Talkie from More Apps to the top section.

Note: The number of apps you can have in the app bar is limited, so you may need to remove other apps before you can pin Walkie Talkie.

Connect to a channel

You can connect to and talk on only one channel at a time in Walkie Talkie.

Note: Walkie Talkie doesn't support private or shared channels.

You can choose one channel to connect to or select up to five favorite channels. Your favorite channels are pinned at the top of the Walkie Talkie screen in alphabetical order, making it easy to switch channels

Note: Pinning favorite channels is available in Walkie Talkie on iOS devices. This feature is coming soon on Android devices.

Tap the right-facing arrow next to Channel.
Select up to five channels, and then tap Done.
If you selected one channel, you're automatically connected to that channel. If you selected more than one channel, you're automatically connected to the first channel in your list of pinned channels.

The channel name next to the arrow indicates your active channel, which is also highlighted in your pinned channel list. You'll receive all communications on that channel.

Note: Walkie Talkie remembers the last channel you connected to and automatically selects and connects you to that channel the next time you open Walkie Talkie.

See who is connected to a channel

The number next to Participants icon indicates how many people are currently connected to the channel, including yourself. Tap to see who is connected.

The people icon in Walkie Talkie, indicating the number people connected to the channel

Switch channels

To listen or speak on a different channel, tap a pinned channel, and you're automatically connected to it.

The channel name next to the arrow changes to your active channel, and you'll see it highlighted in your list of pinned channels.

The Walkie Talkie main screen showing the active channel

When you’re connected to one channel, and there’s activity on any of your other pinned channels, you’ll see a speaker indicator on those channels.

Walkie Talkie devices

You can use Walkie Talkie with specialized devices that have a dedicated push-to-talk (PTT) button, which make it possible to communicate on a channel even when your phone is locked.

For a list of these devices, see Walkie Talkie devices.

Settings

To change Walkie Talkie settings, select your profile picture, go to Settings > Walkie Talkie.

Walkie Talkie settings screen, showing user settings

Alerts

To mute the alert sounds when you send and receive transmissions, turn off the Sound toggle. By default, this setting is on.
Select Beep Volume to adjust the alert volume. The Sound toggle must be on before you can adjust this setting.
Turn on or turn off the Vibrations toggle, depending on whether you want your phone to vibrate when you send transmissions.

Connection

Turn off the Auto connect toggle if you don't want to automatically connect to channels. By default, this setting is on.

Network

Select Test Network Quality to check your network connection.

The Test Network Quality screen in Walkie Talkie

Want to know more?

Communicate with your team in Walkie Talkie

For IT admins

Walkie Talkie app in Microsoft Teams