How To Turn Off The Mic On Google Meet

When you’re always on virtual meetings, there are times where you have to mute your microphone to avoid any unnecessary noise coming from your end. Whether its a barking dog, some background noise, or you need to cough, you can turn off the mic in Google Meet. So to help you, we have here a quick guide on how to mute yourself and other participants on your video conferences.

There are a lot of things that can affect your virtual meetings in Google Meet. Background noise, the quality of your audio, and loud music are among the ones that can sometimes distract the person speaking in the meeting.

While Enterprise account users and teachers using the G Suite can use noise filters to remove background noise, users on their personal Google accounts, like us, don’t have that luxury. All we can do to adjust is to mute our microphone completely.

Although the mute button is pretty easy to find for most people, that’s not the case for everyone. If you’re unfamiliar with Google Meet and its audio settings, we’re here to help you. We have here a quick guide on how to mute yourself and other participants in your video conference.

How to mute your microphone

There are a couple of methods to mute yourself on Google Meet. Whether you’re on a meeting or you plan to turn off the mic before joining one, we got you covered.

Google Meet in web browsers

If you’re using a web browser for your meetings, you can turn off the microphone before you join a conference. To do so, click the microphone icon on the video preview. Once the button turns red, it means that you’re on mute.

But if you’re already in a video conference, you opt to mute yourself by clicking the same microphone icon that is now on the toolbar. When you mute your microphone, Google Meet automatically notifies the other participants.

To unmute your microphone, click on the microphone icon (now color red) again.

Note: You can also press Ctrl+D on your keyboard as a shortcut to toggle the mute switch faster.

Google Meet mobile app

If you prefer to take your video conferences using the Google Meet mobile app, turning the microphone off is a simple task. Look for the “Mute” icon on or before a meeting and toggle it to turn off your mic.

If you can’t find the switch on inside your meeting, lightly tap the video conference display to view some of the meeting options, including the mute button.

How to mute other participants

On video conferences through personal Google accounts, the meeting moderator (usually the creator) can opt to mute other participants. Take note that muting someone without any warning can be offensive to the person involved.

First, click the “Show everyone” icon at the top of the screen to view everyone at the meeting.

Under the “People” tab, click the drop-down icon beside a participant’s name and select the mute button.

Note: Due to various privacy reasons, it isn’t possible to unmute other participants in a meeting.

For those who use the Google Meet mobile app, head over to the People tab, tap the name of a participant, and select the “Mute” icon.

Conclusion

When we join virtual meetings, sometimes our audio output comes with a lot of unnecessary noise that can be quite distracting to the other participants. Whether its a barking dog, loud music, or static feedbacks, sometimes we have no choice but to turn off the microphone.

While users on a meeting can’t usually mute others, the meeting moderator has the power to mute a participant, in case they’re making too much noise to the point that it affects everyone else. Just remember to take some caution before you mute other users to avoid any negative comments or feedback from others.

We hope that our guide helped you in managing your audio in meetings and conferences. If you want more of the latest tips and tricks from us, don’t forget to bookmark the page and subscribe to our newsletter.