Hi, Microsoft 365 Insiders! I’m Katarina Tranker, a Product Manager on the Teams team. Today, I’d like to share an important update: Beginning June 30th, the Together mode experience will no longer be available.
Moving to a simpler meeting layout experience
We’re always working to make meetings easier to join, simpler to manage, and better for everyone, regardless of device or network conditions.
As part of that ongoing effort, we’re retiring Together mode in Microsoft Teams. This change helps:
- Simplify the meeting experience
- Reduce complexity behind the scenes
- Focus our engineering investments on improvements that benefit every Teams meeting such as video quality, stability, and performance.
Today, the core need Together mode was designed to support, namely seeing the people who matter in a meeting, can now be fully met by the modern Gallery view, which can display up to 49 participants at once.
What’s changing?
As this update rolls out:
- The Together mode toggle will be removed from the meeting View menu.
- Scenes and custom scenes, including seat assignments, will be retired along with Together mode.
- Organizations that used scenes for brand presence can instead use organization‑provided branded backgrounds, including frosted glass options.
Meanwhile, the modern Gallery will automatically scale the number and size of participant video tiles based on device capability, helping sustain smooth frame rates and consistent meeting quality across a wide range of environments.
Why are we making this change?
Over time, Microsoft Teams has added several meeting layout options including Gallery, Large Gallery, Together mode, and dynamic views.
While choice can be helpful, having too many layout options can also:
- Increase cognitive load for users
- Fragment the meeting experience across desktop, web, mobile, and Teams Rooms
- Add implementation complexity across platforms
By consolidating on a single, adaptable Gallery experience, we can:
- Simplify the meeting interface and deliver a more consistent experience across devices.
- Deliver higher and more stable video quality across meetings by focusing on client-optimized rendering.
- Free up service capacity that can be reinvested into foundational video improvements that you have asked us to prioritize such as super‑resolution, denoising, and improved color accuracy
Expected benefits
With this change, you can expect:
- Fewer clicks, less hunting: A single Gallery view that “just works,” with built‑in tools like pin and spotlight to keep presenters and key participants visible.
- Smoother video on modest devices: Adaptive video tile counts help prevent machine overload and reduce choppiness.
- Faster innovation: Consolidating on one layout pipeline helps us deliver quality improvements more quickly to all Teams users.
Tips for creating a cohesive meeting experience with Gallery
You can still create a collaborative and engaging meeting environment using:
- Pinning to keep important speakers visible
- Spotlighting to focus attention on presenters
- Branded backgrounds to maintain a cohesive team presence
- Dual displays, when available, to balance participants and shared content
Admins can deploy and enforce organization‑provided backgrounds through the Teams Admin Center to help ensure consistency across meetings.
Scenarios to try
In your next team meeting:
- Use Gallery with pinning or spotlight to keep presenters in focus.
- Publish one or two branded background images for your team.
Availability
Together mode will be removed progressively across platforms following Teams’ standard safe‑deployment process.
NOTE: Targeted Release or Public Preview users may see this change earlier.
We recommend monitoring the Microsoft 365 Message Center for rollout timing by platform and cloud.
Feedback
Your feedback helps us continue improving meetings for everyone. Share your thoughts and your experience with the modern Gallery in Teams by selecting Help > Give feedback.
Microsoft
