Want to make your video meeting a little more exciting?

Changing your background could be just the thing. Microsoft Teams, one of the market leaders in the collaboration landscape, offers one of two ways for users to transform their backgrounds. You can blur out what’s going on behind you, effectively smudging your messy office into a grey mess. Or, if you prefer, you can choose from a series of custom backgrounds to replace your real-life office.

While the blurred background option was fine for a while, most of today’s users will much prefer the custom route. After all – what could be better than having your end-of-week meeting from a beach, on the moon, or in your favourite field?

Today, we’re going to show you how to change your Microsoft Teams background so that you can get the most out of every video meeting.

Changing your Background with Microsoft Teams

To change your background on Microsoft Teams, you’ll need:

  • Microsoft Teams access
  • A high-quality camera or a laptop with one built-in
  • The latest version of Microsoft Teams

There are two options for changing your background on Microsoft Teams. The first is to simply add your background before you start the meeting, ensuring everything looks great before you jump into a call. However, if you want to test the waters first, and see what kind of backgrounds other people are using before you do anything, you can add a background during a meeting too. 

To add your background before you start the meeting, start your video conversation as normal, and you should find yourself at the “joining” screen, where you can see what your video feed looks like and fiddle with settings. Next:

  • Make sure you have your video streaming option toggled on in the button bar at the bottom of the screen, then toggle your background settings control, located between the audio and video control buttons.
  • When the “Background settings” column appears on the right of the screen, use this to blur your background, or choose from the images already provided by Microsoft. You can also now add “custom backgrounds by uploading your own images or choosing from a collection online. We’ll cover how to do this later
  • Your background change will stay in effect throughout your meeting until you decide to change it again. You can change your background multiple times throughout your meeting

There’s no need for a greenscreen or anything similar with Microsoft Teams custom backgrounds. The highly-trained intelligent model will automatically separate you from your background.

Remember, you can also choose to simply “blur” your background, but this doesn’t look as attractive as a picture offered by a virtual background. 

Changing Your Background In-Meeting

If you join a meeting and discover everyone has beautiful backgrounds – but you just have a messy bookcase behind you, then you can change things mid-meeting. Within your meeting, click on the three dots in the middle of the button bar at the top of your screen. Next:

  • Select the “Show background effects” option”, and you’ll be taken to the background settings column on the right of your screen we mentioned above. This bar will allow you to blur or change your background. Again, you can also upload custom backgrounds
  • If you’re in the middle of a meeting and you want to make sure your background looks great before you commit to it, click the “Preview” button. This will show you what other people are likely to see when you apply your new background
  • Once you’re happy with how your background looks, click the “Apply” button, or “Stop preview” if you just want to go back to the previous background

Again, you can apply your own custom backgrounds to a meeting. There’s also the option to just “blur” if you don’t have a great background in mind straight away. 

How to Change Meeting Backgrounds on Mobile

The options above show you how to apply new backgrounds to your meeting video when you’re on the standard desktop version of Teams (or the web-based app). However, if you’re joining from mobile, there’s a slightly different set of processes to go through.

Once again, you can change your background either in the meeting or before it. If you want to change the background before your meeting, set up the video conversation as normal, and select the “Background effects” button at the top of the screen:

  • When the background options appear below your video stream, you can click on “blur” to make the mess behind you disappear or click on one of the images provided
  • If you want to upload a background of your own, click the “plus” sign, and upload your image from your device. You’ll need a .BMP, .PNG, or .JPG file
  • Click on “done”. Your new background should continue in all of your calls and meetings until you decide to change it again

If you want to change your background mid-meeting, the process is very similar to it would be on desktop. Simply click on your meeting or call controls and:

  • Select “More Options” (…), then “Background Effects”
  • Choose whether you want to blur your image, add a background offered by Microsoft, or upload your own background.
  • Use the “Done” button to confirm the background you want to use. You’ll also be able to check your background before committing to it. 

How to Add Your Own Backgrounds

Initially, Microsoft launched Custom Backgrounds as a service with only the option to use the images pre-selected by the company. That meant that you couldn’t add your own vacation shots into your video meeting, or anything else for that matter. 

For a while, adding your own custom backgrounds to Teams was a pretty complicated process. On Windows, you needed to follow the pathway: %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\Uploads, while using the latest version of Microsoft Teams, to essentially drag-and-drop files into the right library for your Teams instance to access. On a Mac computer, the backgrounds would appear in the client folder for Teams:  /Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/Backgrounds.

These days, you shouldn’t have to seek out the custom backgrounds folder on your computer or Mac to change your backgrounds- but it’s worth keeping those pathways close, just in case. Microsoft has since introduced the opportunity to implement custom background effects for all Teams users. 

All you need to do is follow the steps outlined above to “Show background effects” in your meeting. At the top of the list of options you’re given from Microsoft, including the “blur” feature, you should see a button that says: “+ Add New”. 

Microsoft will give you the option to either upload background effects directly from your computer or access a wide variety of high-quality images from the web. If you’re adding a picture from your computer, make sure it’s high-quality, and ensure you only use .JPG, .PNG, or .BMP files.

Visit the “Explore Backgrounds” page on Microsoft’s website if you want to see some of the latest options provided by the company. There’s everything from FOX backgrounds taken from your favourite shows and sporting events to NBC backgrounds, Black history month, Pride, and Xbox. You can even place yourself in front of a nostalgic scene.

The Xbox backgrounds available are all free to use, so you should be able to download a wide selection for whenever you feel like shaking things up.

Remember to preview your background before applying it. 

Are There Any Other Ways to Change Your Background?

Although not technically the same as changing your own background, there is an alternative option if you want to unify your entire team with the same background effect. Together Mode allows users to feel as though they’re sharing the same common space, like an auditorium. This feature is pretty useful if you’re hoping to create a sense of community in a hybrid space.

You can switch on “Together Mode” in Teams by clicking on your profile before you start the meeting and selecting the “Settings” option. Next, select:

  • Enable the toggle for “New Meeting Experience”
  • Place a call or start a meeting (With at least 5 people). You can add up to 49 people in total. 
  • Click the three dots at the top of the screen and select “Together Mode”

Make the Most of Your Custom Backgrounds

Adding custom backgrounds to your meetings with Microsoft Teams has never been easier. 

We also recommend making sure that you have an extremely high-quality image as your background if you want it to look awesome. Stick to something with a high resolution and avoid anything that might have a copyright attached to it (see our article). If in doubt, use the Microsoft approved backgrounds. 

Next time you join a meeting, you should be able to select your Background Effects tab and choose between a custom background, or blur option with ease!

 

(This article was updated in January 2022) 

 

 



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