Teams Meeting organizer can force mute audio for attendees
Give meeting organizers the ability to force mute audio for all attendees in the meeting options page. Attendees should not be able to un-mute their audio with this option set.

We have launched the ability for a presenter to ‘hard mute’ attendees. This feature gives meeting organizers the ability to mute one to many meeting participants while removing the muted participants’ ability to unmute themselves. For more information, please visit https://support.microsoft.com/office/manage-attendee-audio-permissions-in-teams-meetings-f9db15e1-f46f-46da-95c6-34f9f39e671a#bkmk_preventunmuting.
444 comments
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Michal commented
This is essential option. It is enough to have a single student who accidentally or on purpose unmutes and will drown out others. This literally destroys remote lessons.
I've been using Teams for long. It works without this option for adults. It doesn't for elementary school children.
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Anonymous commented
In laptop this option is enabled. To do this you should click participants button, three dots(...) then choose don't allow attendees to unmute. If you enable this attendees can raise hand, and you should click on them and choose allow to unmute.
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Yoshi commented
Hi,
It is announced "launched" in Roadmap but not showing up the feature yet (and still here "In Testing")
Hopefully soon updated here?
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Anonymous commented
I’m looking for this ability as well - but my specific ask is that the attendees calling in to my teams meeting using phone numbers not have the ability to unmute themselves.
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Anonymous commented
Hi,
This Feature appeared for 1 or 2 days in my Teams, then disappeared.
Is this is issue common or because it is still in "Rolling out"?Thanks
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Bassam commented
Hey Alex/MS Team support,
I dont know if it is a bug or a right to be granted by admin. It will be great if you could clearify and look into the issue aswell.
With the recent update in team there is an option availabe now to "Dont allow attendees to unmute". Clicking on which non of attendees can turn on there mic. But the problem is once this option is selected from the organizer there is no option where the organizer can allow the attendees later on in the meeting to unmute them and even the organizer does not have the option to unmute any specific person both for the participents who have raised their hand or not. Even the attendee cannot request to me unmuted.
I believe once the organizer clicks on "Dont allow attendees to unmute" button it should then say "Allow attendees to unmute" which is not the case right now.
PFA image for your refrence. I hope this is just a bug and will be soon fixed.
Regards
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Mr. K commented
Thanks for rolling this out, unfortunately... Now no one can talk at all, once the setting is on, no one can come off mute at all. Not exactly the fix we were looking for.
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Santosh K commented
Hard Audio Mute is very much needed, without which the teams platform is incomplete. As the new academic year is started, please release this feature on priority to all education tenants.
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Cristina Gutierrez commented
As an elementary teacher, I need this option. Some students unmute themselves in the middle of my lesson not realizing that there is a lot of noise in the room they're in (parents talking on the phone, blender going etc). I need to be able to keep them muted without them being able to unmute themselves.
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Anonymous commented
Is it possible to tell when this will be released?
Looking forward to the feature. -
S. Hetenyi commented
being able to hard mute is essential
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Anonymous commented
Hard mute and mute specific students/attendees
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Nick commented
Hi Northern hemisphere people
This will help!
-Start a video call
-In the top right corner near "People" and the "x" there are three dots
-Click the three dots
-A new window will open
-Down the bottom there is "Who can present"
-Click that and change to "Only me"
-Then saveNow ALL of the kids will be attendees, and if a kid leaves and come back (to try and be a presenter) they will still be an attendee.
You still need to do this every call but it is a lot easier then changing each student.
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Anonymous commented
When can we expect this new feature ? Its really annoying that student continuously unmute audio in online classes.
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Christine Goussyra commented
Please give the presenter control of mute/unmute. My younger students do not stay muted and the constant background noise and echo is extremely distracting.
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Anonymous commented
I need this option ASAP. 11 year olds with the ability to unmute whenever they want has led to them screaming in everyone’s face ears in the middle of class.
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IWantToLearnIt commented
There is chat if they want to say something (peacefully) -- so they are not completely shunned like what the guy who suggest voting said -- which another feature that for sure would take time and distraction.
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IWantToLearnIt commented
There is chat if they want to say something (peacefully) -- so you are not completely shunned like what the guy who suggest voting said -- which another feature that for sure would take time and distraction.
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Anna commented
Please it is important to be done
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Anonymous commented
please update us when this feature will be available in Teams, we stuck with students and most time wasted to mute them