Muting and unmuting your mic in Microsoft Teams

Mute or unmute before a meeting

Before joining a meeting, you can turn your mic on or off by selecting the Microphone  toggle.

Mute or unmute during a meeting 

To mute your mic during a meeting, select Mic   in meeting controls at the upper-right area of your screen. To turn your mic back on, select Mic  .

You can also toggle your Mic on and off by pressing the shortcut keys Ctrl+Shift+M. To learn more, see Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Teams.

To automatically mute your mic if your screen locks:

1. In Teams, select More options  > Settings  .

2. Select Privacy  .

3. Turn on the Turn off my camera and mic when my screen locks toggle.

4. Restart Teams to activate this setting.

Use Ctrl+Spacebar to unmute

On the Teams desktop app, you can also choose to stay muted to avoid unwanted interruption or noise during a meeting and rapidly respond when called upon. To quickly unmute, hold down the keys Ctrl+Spacebar (Windows) and Option+Spacebar (Mac). Release keys to go back to muted state again.

How to enable:

1. Go to Settings and more > Settings > Privacy  .

2. Turn on the Keyboard shortcut to unmute toggle. 

3. Join a call or a meeting. Mute yourself.

   1. On Windows, press and hold Ctrl+Spacebar. On Mac, press and hold Option+Spacebar. You'll see an alert regarding temporary unmute. Check to make sure you're unmuted.

   2. When you release the key combination, your mic will be muted again.

Want to learn more? See Meetings in Teams.