If you’ve been in a situation where you have a meeting on Teams, but the background of your room could do with being tidy, you’ll appreciate the video background feature on Teams. It allows you to remove your current background and add a virtual one. There are two ways you can do this. You can either pick one of Teams’ existing backgrounds or add a custom one.
You must be in a Teams meeting to add a background image. Once the meeting has started, you can select a background from the available options. To set a background, enter the meeting with your camera switched off. Once you have chosen your background and clicked ‘Apply,’ your camera will turn on again, and your selected background will be visible. Please follow the steps below to change the background in a Teams meeting.
- Join or start a Teams meeting.
- Click on the three-dot icon in the menu bar.
- Click on the option for ‘Show background effects.’
- Select the background of your choice.
- Click ‘Apply.’
We’ve also created a video that covers choosing backgrounds in Teams, as well as uploading custom backgrounds of your own. You can watch it here:
This blog post will cover the following:
Using Teams backgrounds
As explained above, there are many scenarios where it would be beneficial to change or blur your background. For many Teams users, the biggest reason to change their background is to hide their background from others joining the meeting. You can easily change your background if you want privacy and don’t want your colleagues to see your home environment.
Another reason you may want to change your Team’s background is if you want to create a fun atmosphere for your colleagues during your meeting.
Finally, if your meeting is with a client or customer, you can create and use a custom background with your company logo. This is a great way to promote your business, as your clients will be able to see your logo for the duration of your meeting.
How to use video backgrounds
Follow the steps outlined below to choose a background from Teams:
- Join or start a Teams meeting.
Before you can change your background on Teams, you need to enter the meeting. You can join the meeting with your camera switched off to avoid being seen. Once you have chosen the background and clicked ‘Apply,’ your camera will turn on again, and you will be able to see the background you selected.
2. Click on the three-dot icon in the menu bar.
There is a menu at the top of the meeting that displays many different options. Click on the three dots that says ‘More.’
3. Click on the option for ‘Apply background effects.’
A drop-down list of more options will appear. Click on the option for ‘Apply background effects.’
4. Select the background of your choice.
As you can see from the image above, you will be presented with many options to choose from. Select the background of your choice.
5. Click ‘Apply and turn on video.’
Once you have selected a background, click ‘Apply and turn on video.’ This will allow you to join the meeting with your camera and the selected background.
How to use custom backgrounds
One reason you may want to use a custom background rather than one of Teams’ own backgrounds is if you want to add your company logo. To do this, you need to add an image to Teams from your computer. Follow the steps outlined below to do this.
- Open File Explorer.
Open your File Explorer and select ‘Windows (C:).’ This will open up the folders as displayed in the image above.
2. Then go to Users > (username) > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Teams > Backgrounds > Uploads
Once you have followed the above path, click on the uploads folder. This is where you store the image you want to use as a background in Teams.
3. Drag and drop your chosen background image into this folder.
The image should appear in the folder as shown in the image above.
4. Then, join or start a Teams meeting.
Before changing your background on Teams, you need to join a meeting.
5. Click on the three-dot icon in the menu bar.
You’ll see a menu at the top of the meeting displays many different options. Click on the three dots that says ‘More.’
6. Click on the option for ‘Show background effects.’
A drop-down list of more options will appear. Click on the option for ‘Apply background effects.’
7. Select the background you previously added into the uploads folder.
8. Click ‘Apply and turn on video.’
Once you have selected your background, click ‘Apply and turn on video.’ This will allow you to join the meeting with your camera and the selected background.
Conclusion
The background hanging feature on Team can come in very handy during meetings. Whether you want to hide your background for privacy reasons or add a custom background to promote your company, Teams allows you to do this easily and straightforwardly.
Thank you for reading this blog post. Hopefully, you should not be able to change your video background during a Teams meeting. If you have any further questions about Teams, feel free to leave a comment, and we’ll get back to you soon.
If you want to find out more about using Teams, read our previous blog posts below:
- How to embed an Outlook 365 Group calendar in Teams – Microsoft Teams provides many different features that help users manage content and hold group meetings. One feature is the ability to embed an Outlook 365 group calendar in Teams. This blog post explains how to do this.
- How to remove Microsoft Teams organization from your account – Although Microsoft Teams allows users to connect their account with multiple organizations, they may want to remove organizations they no longer work for. This blog post shows outlines how to do this.
- How To Make Files Read-Only In Microsoft Teams – One great feature of Microsoft Teams is that it allows users to limit a document to Read-Only. However, users also want to know how to restrict files to Read-Only. Read this blog post to find out how to do this.