You can now disable chat during Microsoft Teams meetings
With the ability to disable chats during meetings, its a bit easier to keep people focused while on Teams.
What you need to know
- Microsoft Teams now lets you disable chat during meetings.
- Chat can be disabled or enabled on a per-meeting basis.
- You can also set it so attendees can only chat during the meeting.
Thousands of people requested for Microsoft Teams to gain the ability to disable chats within meetings. Microsoft has responded and rolled out the feature to Teams. Now, people can enable or disable chat on a per-meeting basis. A Microsoft engineer explains the feature in a Teams feedback forum (via ZDNet).
"Please allow meeting organizer to temporarily disable chat during a meeting," asked the original piece of feedback. Adding, "We often have people so focused on the chat, they don't pay any attention to the actual meeting. We'd love to be able to turn off chat at the beginning of the meeting, and then turn it back on at an appropriate point."
A Microsoft engineer confirmed that the feature is now avaialble, and shared a link to a Microsoft support page.
The page explains that there are three options for chats during meetings:
- Enabled (default): Attendees can chat before, during, and after the meeting.
- Disabled: No one, including the organizer, can send chat messages.
- During the meeting only: Attendees can chat during the meeting. The organizer can send messages at any time.
To swap between these settings, use the option next to Allow meeting chat.
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Sean Endicott is a news writer and apps editor for Windows Central with 11+ years of experience. A Nottingham Trent journalism graduate, Sean has covered the industry’s arc from the Lumia era to the launch of Windows 11 and generative AI. Having started at Thrifter, he uses his expertise in price tracking to help readers find genuine hardware value.
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