Can a meeting organizer mute all participants before a meeting starts?

[Christine Green]

Is it possible to start a meeting with all participants muted? It seems that after five participants, the rest are muted. Would also like to be able to avoid feedback noise at the start of the meeting and have the video and mic turned off by default when the meeting is started. Thanks!

[#2]

AFAIK, Mute all participants is not yet in Teams...you only have the option to mute individual meeting attendees

[#3]

This is ridiculous.  its been now years since this request was placed and this feature still missing.  They must have kids working on these platforms with no sense of basic business needs and no experience.  that is how it feels from our end.  dedicate a team for the basics of business needs and then add all the other toys you want.  But the basics must be solid.  These issues cause people to want to leave the product and spend more money on other platforms unnecessarily.

[#4]

@Christine Green - to make this even more fun, last week I muted an attendee and did not have the option to unmute them, after that my only option was to remove them from the meeting altogether.

[#5]

It’s seem to be a bug!

[#6]

I believe that is the default. The end user is notified they have been muted. The person must unmute themselves when ready to speak. It would be a bit wild/unacceptable to unmute someone that wants to remain private while talking to someone privately....

you can always send a quick message to the person to unmute, and they can hear you as well...

[#7]

I “guess” what you also meant was that the participant couldn’t unmute him/herself either! At least I’ve heard this scenario before! Otherwise you’re correct

[#8]

@Christine Green 

Totally right on this one! This no default mute setting makes the start of every meeting with 5+ people a nightmare trying to figure out who is causing the feedback. Great for people who love high pitched ringing!

[#9]

@Juan Carlos González Martín, I did see Mute All in Teams available in a large conference meeting I attended today. Just open your meeting roster and select the small Mute All hyperlink at top right. 

[#10]

@José Rosario where is the meeting roster?

[#11]

@LeahZ, in preparation for a Teams meeting, you can Mute All once you get three or more participants in the meeting. Then, when input is requested from the group, you’ll want to ask them to unmute themselves individually.

To Mute All,
1. Click Show Participants once you’ve begin the meeting


2. On the participant list that flies out from the right, click the Mute All link at top.


3. Click Mute and you’re done.

--Jose Rosario 

[#12]

@José Rosario 

I don't have the "mute all" option, is there a reason for that?

[#13]

@natp138 I don't have it as well and I've tried across a few different tenants

[#14]

@José Rosario What about those participants that just call in? I cannot seem to be able to mute those.... I have muted individuales and not been able to so I don't know if the all mute would. Do you know?

[#15]

@AlexBleicker  I got it, as soon as at least 2 participants join, you can mute them all.  If less then 2 participants, the option is not visible

[#16]

@NMSHIGHSMITH that's a curious situation I haven't tested. If anyone else can add to this, I'd like to know.

[#17]

@NMSHIGHSMITH It should work.  Clicking on Mute all, it says it was muting the phone line, but for my test it failed. Clicking mute manually on the participant worked.  *6 is how the caller can mute/unmute themselves.  It does announce to the caller that they've been muted.

[#18]

@José Rosario We used the "Mute All" button after the first 4 of 30 participants joined. It works - sorta.

Subsequent attendees are pre-muted, but everyone can unmute themselves later. App users do so in the app; callers use the *6 function.

Oh, and the callers have to unmute themselves, the first time after we use the Mute All feature from the App - not even the Organizer was able to unmute the callers, until they first unmuted themselves.

All well and fine, but we need to run occasional meetings where we only broadcast audio out, and nobody (app or caller) can unmute themselves. We can do this today, in Skype. We really need MS to include this feature back into Teams...

[#19]

@TomHaraka The answer is apparently "yes" but ... All that is required is that the meeting be booked initially as a "live event" rather than a "meeting."  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/plan-and-schedule-a-live-event-f92363a0-6d98-46d2-bdd9-f224...

I'm thinking anything over ten people probably ought to be a "live event."  I'm also thinking that granting the organizer access to this option after scheduling the meeting would be helpful.

[#20]

@Vermont1950 For better control of who is muted and not muted, use the presenter and attendee roles.  Sometimes a meeting of 100 people is just fine as a Teams meeting and the ability to unmute themselves is necessary.  Before going to a Live Event which may limit interaction, see if the attendee and presenter roles will help control the audience a bit more while still allowing interaction during the session: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/roles-in-a-teams-meeting-c16fa7d0-1666-4dde-8686-0a0bfe16...  

This will allow you to mute attendees from the start, keep them from muting all, and keep them from advancing slides for the presenter, etc.  Hope this helps!

[#21]

@Laurie Pottmeyer Based on your comments and those in the linked "Roles" page, it still does not meet our needs. There are groups whom we solely wish to present to - we don't want them interrupting via audio, chat, or sharing data/screens, etc.

In a perfect world, we would be able to identify two sets of recipients to attend a meeting

• Folks who can participate, and
• Folks who cannot.

In today's version of Skype for Business, we can create "meetings" wherein the attendees cannot unmute, share, chat, or otherwise interrupt. It may sound a tad rude, but we still want that option, as we move into Teams.

If that kind of option set was at least available on a per-meeting basis (like it is in Skype), then I suppose we could run two concurrent meetings - one allowing participation, and the other not.

[#22]

@TomHaraka I think we have reached that perfect world, where an organizer can mute for good attendees.  Unfortunately, that feature is somewhat hidden. 

After you schedule a meeting, you can go back to the calendar entry and choose "meeting options."  From there, you can choose whether people are "presenters" who can unmute themselves or (mere) "attendees," who cannot unmute themselves.  

I discovered this feature by accident, when some people who had been forwarded the invitation could not unmute themselves.  The way the feature is hidden makes it a bit of a challenge in large meetings.  But the feature exists, and, most importantly prevents random sound and random interruptions.  I understand that there is also a new "raise your hand" feature in Teams.  Something to explore.

[#23]

@Vermont1950, the meeting options I see do not brand people as "attendees" or "presenters" as you say. I only see the following when I click on my calendar entry's three dot menu and choose Meeting Options:

But no worries: I've learned now that presenters are chosen in the "Who can present?" field as follows, per https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/roles-in-a-teams-meeting-c16fa7d0-1666-4dde-8686-0a0bfe16...: 

Who can present?	What happens
Everyone	Anyone who has access to the meeting link will join the meeting as a presenter.
People in my organization	Only people in your org will be presenters. External participants will join as attendees.
Specific people	Only people you choose from the list of invitees will be presenters. Everyone else will join as attendees.
Only me	Only the organizer will be a presenter. All other participants will join as attendees.

[#24]

@Vermont1950 An awesome start. After we finish upgrading our tenant, we'll try it out.

[#25]

@José Rosario 

Most expected option is now available on Microsoft Teams. Let's explore.

[#26]

Thanks, this answered my question. Glad the feature is there (if hidden!)