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How to Use and Adjust Video in Microsoft Teams Meetings

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Enhance your video conferencing experience with Microsoft Teams! This comprehensive guide walks you through the process of adjusting video settings, background, layout, and other video options to ensure a seamless communication environment for your meetings and collaborations.

Turn your video on or off

Before a meeting:

1. To turn on your video before a meeting, begin by going into your Calendar.

2.  Click on a scheduled meeting, join with an ID, or start a new meeting by clicking Meet now.

3. When the Audio and Video settings appear, you will be able to turn your camera on or off. Simply click the toggle button next to the camera icon to switch it on or off.

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 video background

If you want to change what appears behind you in your video, you can either blur your background, or replace with a background image.

When you're setting up your audio and video before a meeting, select Video Effects  (just below the video image). You'll see your background options on the right.

Choose a video layout

When you join a Teams meeting, you'll see the video streams of up to nine other people on your screen at the same time. This is the default Gallery view.

You have several different video layouts to choose from, depending on the size of the meeting and the number of people you'd like to see on your screen at once.

Select More options  in the meeting controls, and pick the one you want: Gallery

The default view when you join a meeting. If there are more than nine others in attendance, Teams will prioritize the people who have their video turned on, as well as those that are speaking the most.

For people that haven't turned on their video, we'll show their profile pic instead (or their initials if they haven't added one).

Large gallery

Enables you to see the videos of up to 49 other people at once. This option is available when at least ten people have their cameras turned on. 

Together mode

Lets you feel like you're in the same shared space with everyone in the 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, click 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. 

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

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.  

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. 

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, and then Fit to frame to see the entire video.

Select Fill frame to see a closer, cropped view.

Additional Resources

Want to learn more about Teams? Checkout Microsoft Teams Video Training.

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