Change participant settings for a Teams meeting

Modified on Mon, 26 Apr, 2021 at 8:37 AM

Although default participant settings are determined by an org's IT admin, a meeting organizer may want to change them for a specific meeting. Organizers can make these changes on the Meeting options web page.

Go to Meeting options

You can access this page a few different ways, depending on what kind of meeting it is.

Scheduled meetings

There are several different ways to get to Meeting options for a scheduled meeting:

In Teams, go to Calendar , select a meeting, and then Meeting options.
In a meeting invitation, select Meeting options.
During a meeting, select Show participants in the meeting controls. Then, above the list of participants, choose Manage permissions .
Another way to get there during a meeting is to select More actions at the top of the meeting window, and then Meeting options. A panel will open on the right, and you can change your options right from there.

Instant meetings

Once you've started a meeting by selecting Meet now Meet now button (whether from a channel or your calendar):

Choose Show participants in your meeting controls. You'll see a list of everyone in the meeting.
Above the list, select Manage permissions to go to Meeting options.

Another way to get there during your meeting is to select More actions at the top of the meeting window, and then Meeting options. A panel will open on the right, and you can change your options right from there.

Change participant settings

There are several different participant settings a meeting organizer can change.

Choose who can bypass the lobby

As the meeting organizer, you get to decide who gets into your meetings directly, and who should wait for someone to let them in.

If you choose to have people wait, you (and anyone else allowed to admit people) will see a list of people in the lobby. From there you can choose whether to admit or deny them.

Who can bypass the lobby?	What happens	Recommended when...
Only you	As the meeting organizer, only you can get into your meeting directly. Everyone else will wait in the lobby.	You want everyone else to wait in the lobby until you're ready to admit them.
People I invite*	Anyone who receives the invitation, including those to whom it's forwarded, will join the meeting directly. This doesn't include distribution lists—people must be invited individually. If you don't want people to forward the invite to others, turn off Allow Forwarding in the invitation.	You want a specific, limited group of people to join the meeting directly, and everyone else to wait in the lobby.
People in my organization	Only people within your org can get into your meeting directly. Everyone else will wait in the lobby.	You want all guests and external people to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
People in my organization and guests	People in your org and guests (including those who have different email domains than yours) can get into your meetings directly.	You want all external people (anyone outside your org, except guests) to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
People in my organization and trusted organizations, and guests	People in your Teams org, external participants from trusted organizations, and guests can get into your meetings directly.	You want some external people to wait in the lobby so you can approve them one by one.
Everyone	Anyone who has access to the meeting link gets into the meeting directly, including people who call in.	You don’t want anyone to wait in the lobby. You want everyone to be able to join your meetings without specific approval.

* Unavailable in channel meetings

Let people calling in by phone bypass the lobby

You'll see a toggle next to Always let callers bypass the lobby. When this setting is enabled, people calling in by phone will join your meeting without having to wait for someone to admit them.

Select the toggle to turn it on or off.

Get notified when callers join or leave

You may want to receive an alert when someone calling in by phone joins or leaves your meeting. (Your admin might have enabled these alerts by default.)

To change this setting, select the toggle next to Announce when callers join or leave?

Choose who can present

See Roles in a Teams meeting for details about selecting presenters and changing someone's role before and during a meeting.

Note: Meeting rooms are part of your org, so they'll join meetings the same way any other account in your org does.

Prevent attendees from unmuting themselves

To avoid random noise and distractions in large meetings, you may want to decide when attendees can unmute. For details, see Manage attendee audio permissions in Teams meetings.

To prevent attendees from unmuting, turn off the toggle next to Allow attendees to unmute.