How to prevent attendees from unmuting during a Teams meeting

If you’re hosting a meeting in Microsoft Teams with a large group of people and need to talk to a large group of people about a topic, you will need to know how to mute the participants until you need to hear feedback.

Muting all the attendees of a meeting and making it so they can’t unmute is a straightforward process. You can do this by creating a meeting and going to the meeting settings before or during a meeting and making everyone an attendee; you can then choose to allow attendees the option to speak.

How to prevent attendees from unmuting during a Teams meeting

  • First, start Microsoft Teams.
  • Visit the calendar and press “+ New meeting” or press on the day you want to have a meeting.
  • Enter the details you want for the meeting; these include the date and time, the participants, and the name of the meeting; you can use a description if you want.
  • Find the meeting on your calendar or email.
  • Press “Meeting Options.”
  • Click on “Who can present,” then change it to either “Only Me” or “Specific People,” depending on how many people need to present in it. This will make everyone else an attendee.
  • Finally, change “Allow mic for attendees” to “No.” This will stop attendees from being able to unmute.

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How to prevent the participants of a Teams meeting from unmuting

Before you can change the option to mute the participants and stop them from unmuting, you must make the meeting first. This can be done using Microsoft Teams online or the desktop app, and I have created a guide to walk you through it.

  • The first step is to start Microsoft Teams; this can be done by clicking on the app icon, using the search bar, or opening the web app on office 365.
  • Once Microsoft Teams has opened correctly, visit the calendar section. This will allow you to make a new meeting tailored to what you need; once here, you can press “+ New meeting” to start the creation process.
  • At this point, you will need to enter everything you think you need for the meeting, especially if it is to be host to a large audience. You need to enter the name of the meeting, the time it will take place, each person who will participate in it, and any other detail you think will be necessary.

Once you press “Send,” the meeting will be created. A notification of the meeting will be sent to everyone who was entered on the required participant list; this will also show up on everyone’s calendar on Teams or Outlook as it is connected through the cloud. This allows people to click on the meeting invite and join from here when the meeting comes around.

If you want to add more people to the participant list, you can go to the meeting on the calendar and add their names to it. Alternatively, you can add people during the meeting by sharing the link with them.

  • Once it has been created, go to your calendar and click on the meeting, it will allow you to click “Edit,” where you can change any of the details about the meeting.
  • Once you reach this page, go to the bottom of the list and click “Meeting Options” to find a list of things you can change about your meeting, including how to mute all participants and prevent them from unmuting.

How to mute all participants in a Teams meeting

Once the meeting has been created, you can go to it on the calendar and click “Edit—” this will allow you to press “Meeting Options.” These are what you need to change about the meeting if you want to force mute everyone else and make it so they cant unmute if you want to have a meeting where they have to listen to you.

Once you are here, the first thing to do is to make sure that people only your lobby if you allow them to; this gives you a list of options, including;

  • Only Me.
  • Everyone.
  • People in my organization.
  • People in my organization and guests.
  • People in my organization, trusted organizations, and guests.
  • People I invite. (Turn off Allow Forwarding in the meeting invite)

For this guide, I will keep it so only “People in my organizations and guests” can bypass the lobby.

The next thing is to choose from the “Who can present?” option. The choice you want to pick would depend on if you are the only one who would present or if there would be a few others doing it. Everyone else who can’t present is made into an “attendee,” making them available to be affected by some of the meeting options.

  • Click on the box and choose “Only me” if you are the only one to present at the meeting.

To choose the option for multiple presenters, click on “Specific people.” It will allow you to search for certain people to make them presenters.

  • Go to the option “Allow mic for attendees?” and toggle it to no.
  • Toggle “Allow camera for attendees?” to no also.

Start the meeting and allow everyone to join who needs to be there; if you want to add more people to it, you can share the meeting link with them. If they aren’t in the criteria you set for people who can bypass the lobby, they will appear as waiting in a lobby. Then, you will have to admit them into the main room.

When users join or if you edit the meeting settings during the meeting, these messages or ones related to what you changed will appear to the attendees.

You can change some of the meeting settings during a meeting by pressing on “People” and clicking “…” found next to “Participants.” The options that appear here are things like the mic and camera options from the meeting options page.

Option to enable mic for attendees.

Option to disable mic for attendees.

Conclusion

Disabling people’s mics in Teams meetings is a process that isn’t difficult to follow and doesn’t take long. You can do it by creating a meeting and finding it on your calendar, then pressing “Meeting Options” to make everyone else an attendee. On this page, choose who can present from this page, then choose the toggle option for the mic and camera options.

Siddra Afzal

Siddra Afzal has been a researcher and content writer at Business Tech Planet since 2021. Siddra formerly wrote newsletters for the NHS and was a PR and Communications Officer. She now combines her passion for photography and video editing with her knowledge of communications, writing, and research to the art of crafting the perfect tech guides for BTP. You can connect with Siddra on LinkedIn.

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