Tip of the week # 627
25 October 2020


Keyboard toggle to mute and unmute yourself (MS Teams) *

The other day I helped an octogenarian friend get to grips with MS Teams as he had received a meeting request and wasn't sure what to do. After the initial confusion that I wasn't talking about a real mute button on a mic I thought I'd share the keyboard equivalent to mute and unmute yourself:

CTRL + SHIFT + M

So if you are attending a meeting and there is background noise that's within your microphone's range - perhaps you get an unexpected phone call or the postie rings the doorbell - simply press CTRL + SHIFT + M to mute your mic. Press CTRL + SHIFT + M once more when you are ready to re-join the conversation.

By the way, you wouldn't be surprised that this is only one of many shortcuts you can use in Teams, but along with the less intuitive CTRL + SHIFT + O to switch your camera off or on, it's the one I - and hence my delegates - most frequently use. Click here for Microsoft's list of keyboard shortcuts for Teams on Windows, as well as on Mac.

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* Unless stated otherwise, these tips were written for Microsoft Office 2010.