Change Your Microsoft Teams Background Before a Meeting
MS Teams backgrounds can help you hold meetings anywhere. They remove the distractions of what’s happening behind your shoulder, help your team members focus, and allow you to present a professional front.
Open Microsoft Teams. Select the Camera icon for a new meeting or choose any of the meetings under Recent. Give a new meeting a name. Select Get a link to share or Start meeting. Share the meeting link via email or any other medium. Choose Start meeting to begin the video chat. Microsoft Teams displays a screen to choose your video and audio settings for the call. The background settings icon lies between the Microphone icon and the Settings icon. The background options are only enabled if the camera is on. Toggle the Camera switch to turn it on. Select Background settings to open a panel on the right to display all the thumbnails for the background image options. Choose a thumbnail for the background you want. Select the Join Now button to start the meeting with the background applied behind you on the screen. You can also upload your own background to give the meeting some personality. To use an image of your own, select Add new and then select a JPG, PNG, or a BMP image file from your computer. Microsoft recommends images with an aspect ratio of 16:9 and a resolution of at least 1920 x 1080. The higher the resolution, the better your images will appear. To remove the background, choose the first thumbnail (the icon has a circle with a line across it).
The chosen background persists across the meeting. You can select and swap backgrounds anytime while in the meeting, though you might want to stick to a consistent background if it’s professional in nature.
Change Your Microsoft Teams Background During a Meeting
A meeting starts, and you realize that the chosen background isn’t the right fit. Microsoft Teams also allows you to change and swap backgrounds while a meeting is going on.
Go to the meeting controls at the top. Select More actions (the icon with three dots) > Apply background effects. Choose from the available images. Click Preview to see the image before you apply. Select Apply when you’re finished.
