Using video in Microsoft Teams
There are a lot of ways to customize your video experience—and the video you share with others—when you join a Teams meeting or call.
Turn your video on or off
Before a meeting
To turn on your video before a meeting, just select Camera 
right before you join.
During a meeting
You might want to turn your video on and off over the course of a meeting—if you'd prefer people only see you while you're talking, for example. Go to the meeting controls anytime during the meeting and select Camera 
.
Change your background
If you want to change what appears behind you in your video, you can either blur your background, or replace it entirely with any image you want.
When you're setting up your audio and video before a meeting, select Background filters 
(just below the video image). You'll see your background options on the right.
Note: If you don't see the option to turn on background effects, the feature might not be available on your device yet.
For more details about customizing your background, see Change your background for a Teams meeting.
Use video filters
Customize your video feed with the video filters like Soft focus and Adjust brightness. Soft focus creates a smoothing effect for your face over video. Adjust brightness enhances the video quality when lighting is poor. To learn more about video filters, see Apply video filters in Teams meetings.
Filters are turned off by default. To apply video filters, go to the Device Settings panel > Video Settings, then turn on the toggle next to your desired filter.
Soft focus filter
Change your view
Customize how you see other people's video during a Teams meeting with Views . For example, you may want to see as many video feeds as you can at one time in a large meeting.
Note: To provide the best possible audio and video quality, we might decrease the number of videos you're seeing at once if you're running a little low on bandwidth or device memory.
Gallery
Gallery is the default view during a Teams meeting. This view can include up to 49 other participant videos on supported devices using the Teams desktop app. Other devices may show fewer participant videos, adjusted based on the device hardware capabilities.
If there are more than 49 participants in your meeting, Teams will show the people who turned their cameras on and are speaking the most.
Notes:
-
Gallery view of up to 49 participant videos is only supported in the Teams desktop app.
-
When using pop-out, Gallery view will show up to nine video participants on any device.
-
Supported devices: Windows devices with the Intel 11th generation processor (or newer) with four or more cores and Mac devices with Apple Silicon (M1 and M2 chipsets or newer).
For people who haven't turned on their videos, Teams shows their profile pic instead (or their initials if they haven't added one). Depending on hardware and device capabilities, internet bandwidth, or whether content is shared or popped out, the number of videos displayed may be reduced.
Large gallery
In large meetings, Teams' Large gallery view shows up to 49 participant videos in the meeting window at once.
Note: If no one is sharing video, Large gallery won't be selectable in the menu.
When more than 49 participants join a Teams meetings, see them all in a gallery with pages. In Large gallery view, navigation controls < > appear at the bottom of the gallery when there are more than 49 participants. Use these navigation controls to view or engage with more participants.
Together mode
Feel like you're in a shared space with everyone in your meeting with Together mode. Name labels and status icons will appear next to each person, showing their names, reactions, and more.
To turn on Together mode, select View > Together mode during your meeting. Together mode is available when there are at least five people in the meeting.
If you're a meeting organizer or presenter, you have an assortment of scenes to choose from.
To change the scene:
-
Select the scene name at the bottom left corner of your screen.
-
Under Choose a scene, pick the one you want and select Apply. The scene will change for everyone who's in Together mode.
Note: The classroom scene automatically seats the meeting organizer (or whichever presenter was first to join) apart from the other participants.
Assign seats in Together mode
To assign seats in a meeting:
-
Turn on Together mode in a meeting.
-
Select Change scene > Assign seats.
-
Under Select a participant, select and hold down a participant’s name. Then, drag them to a preferred seat to assign it to them.
-
Select and hold down a seat, then drag it to a participant’s name under Select a participant to assign it to them.
-
-
Select Assign to apply the new seating arrangement.
By default, everyone will see the new seating assignment in Together mode. To let attendees change their view, unselect Make this everyone’s view.
Note: Only the meeting organizer can assign seats.
2x2 (web only)
If you're using Teams on the web (Edge or Chrome browser), you'll see up to four video streams at a time. Join a Teams meeting and ask your participants to turn on their cameras to display a 2x2 grid of four participant videos at once.
Note: 2x2 video on Teams for web (Edge and Chrome) is available as part of the public preview program and may undergo further changes before being released publicly. To get access to this and other upcoming features, switch to the Teams public preview.
Focus
Available when content is being shared. This is the view to choose when you'd like to pay close attention to the content without the distraction of seeing people's video feeds.
Note: You'll need to turn on the new meeting experience to use Large gallery, Together mode, and Focus.
-
Join your meeting.
-
In the meeting controls, select Views and choose Focus on content.
Pin someone's video
To pin someone's video to your view regardless of who's talking, select More options 
in their video feed (next to their name) and choose Pin for me.
Pin your own video
To pin your own video, select More options in your video feed (next to your name) and choose Pin for me. This will pin your video for your own view, others won't see you pinned. If you no longer want to be pinned, select More options > Unpin for me.
Spotlight a video
Spotlighting a video is like pinning it for everyone in the meeting. If you're an organizer or a presenter, you can choose anyone's video (including your own) to be the main video people see.
To spotlight someone else's video, right-click on the one you want and select Spotlight.
To spotlight your own video, first select Show participants. Then, under Participants, right-click your name and select Spotlight. You can spotlight anyone else's video this way, as well.
For more details, see Spotlight someone's video in a Teams meeting.
Hide your own video
To hide your own video, select More options in your video feed (next to your name) and choose Hide for me. This will hide your video for your own view, others will still see your video. If you no longer want to be hidden, select More options > Unhide for me.
Reframe a video
Teams crops some videos to make them fit your screen better. If you want a different view of a particular video—for example, if someone’s cropped out of the video or it only shows part of their face—select More options in their video feed then Fit to frame to see the entire video.
Select Fill frame to see a closer, cropped view.
When you join a Teams meeting or call on the mobile app, you can customize your video experience—and the video you share with others—in a bunch of different ways.
Turn your video on or off
Before a meeting
To turn on your video before a meeting, just tap Turn video on right before you join.
During a meeting
You may want to turn your video on or off over the course of a meeting—if you'd prefer people only see you while you're talking, for example. Go to the meeting controls at the bottom of your screen during the meeting and tap Turn video on .
Blur your background
You can blur your background before or during a meeting if you don't want others to be able to see what's behind you. You'll appear nice and clear while everything behind you is subtly concealed.
Before the meeting, just tap Background blur in the upper left corner of your screen before tapping Join.
For more details about changing your background, see Change your background for a Teams meeting.
Change your view
Customize how you see other people's video during a Teams meeting with Views . For example, in a large meeting, you may want to see as many video feeds as you can at one time.
The following examples show the default Gallery view on different devices.
Phone view example
Tablet view example
-
Select More options
> Views and choose the view you want.
-
Whichever one you choose, pinch in or out to zoom and adjust your view.
Gallery
The default view when you join a meeting. When there are more than seven others in attendance (eight if you're using a tablet), Teams features the people who have their video turned on and those who speak the most. Your video feed is always in the lower-right corner of the screen.
-
If you're using a phone, you can see up to eight featured participant videos and 15 additional people to scroll through at the bottom of the screen.
-
If you're using a tablet, you can see up to nine featured participant videos and 20 additional people to scroll through at the bottom of the screen.
Large gallery
This option's available when at least nine people have their cameras turned on. You can view up to 100 participant videos (though not all at once).
The maximum number of people you can see on your screen at once depends on your device and its software.
|
Device type |
iOS 13 or later |
iOS 12 or earlier |
Android 9 or later (or greater than 4 GB RAM) |
Android 8 or earlier (or less than 4 GB RAM) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Phone |
10 people at once |
49 people at once (lower resolution) |
10 people at once |
49 people at once (lower resolution) |
|
Tablet |
Nine people at once |
49 people at once (lower resolution) |
Nine people at once |
49 people at once (lower resolution) |
-
Swipe left or right to view or engage with more participants.
Together mode
Lets you feel like you're in the same shared space with everyone in the meeting. Together mode is available when a meeting has at least five people in it.
If you're a meeting organizer or presenter, you have an assortment of scenes to choose from. To change the scene, tap on the scene name in the bottom left corner of your screen.
Under Choose a scene, pick the one you want and select Apply. The scene will change for everyone who's in Together mode.
Note: The classroom scene automatically seats the meeting organizer (or whichever presenter was first to join) apart from the other participants.
Pin someone's video
To pin someone's video to your view regardless of who's talking, press and hold the video you want, then tap Pin for me.
Spotlight a video
When a video is spotlighted, it's essentially pinned for everyone in the meeting. For now, you're not able to start or stop spotlighting on the mobile app, but when someone using the desktop app spotlights a video, that video will be spotlighted for you just like it is for people on the desktop app.
You'll also get a notification that the video is spotlighted.
For more info, see Spotlight someone's video in a Teams meeting.
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