During a big presentation, a webinar or a class you sometimes don't want attendees chatting all over the place. As the organizer you can turn off chat in a Teams meeting or limit it to the duration of the meeting. Admins can also set this for the whole organization. This article explains which choices you have, what each choice does exactly and what to watch out for.
When do you turn chat off?
- Presentations for a large audience, where a busy chat distracts from the speaker.
- Classes and training sessions, where you'd rather receive questions in a structured way.
- Meetings with external guests, where you don't want the chat to carry on afterwards.
- Formal meetings, where only what is said counts.
Turn off chat in meeting options
- Open the meeting in your Teams calendar and select Options > Meeting options. During the meeting, go to More (...) > Settings > Meeting options.
- Find Meeting chat (under Engagement). The exact names can differ slightly between versions of Teams.
- Choose:
- Enabled: everyone can chat before, during and after the meeting.
- In-meeting only: the chat is only open while the meeting is running.
- Disabled: nobody can chat.
- Select Save.
For a recurring meeting the setting applies to the whole series. You can change it back at any time, even during the meeting.
What do attendees notice?
With In-meeting only, attendees can no longer type in the meeting chat before or after the meeting. With Disabled, the chat pane isn't available during the meeting. Organizers and presenters are restricted as well, so share links and documents another way, for example in the invitation. Want to know who actually joined without relying on the chat? Use the attendance report.
Rather collect questions?
Want questions, but not a busy chat? Use Q&A in a Teams meeting, or turn off reactions. For even more control you can also turn off attendees' cameras. For a large event, a webinar or town hall is often a better choice, because there you separate the roles of presenters and attendees even more strictly.
Tips for a meeting without chat
- Mention in the invitation that chat is off and how attendees can ask questions, so nobody is surprised.
- Put useful links and documents in the invitation beforehand, because you can't paste them in the chat during the meeting.
- When in doubt, choose In-meeting only: attendees can still respond, but the chat doesn't go on forever.
Common problems
- I can't change the setting. Your organization's meeting policy can lock the choice. Contact your admin.
- The option is missing for a channel meeting. In channel meetings the conversation runs through the channel post, and meeting chat works differently there. Schedule the meeting as a regular calendar meeting instead.
- Attendees are still chatting. Check that you saved the change and that they aren't talking in a separate group chat.
For admins
In the Teams admin center, go to Meetings > Meeting policies. In the policy, set Meeting chat for everyone or for a group of users. Assign the policy to organizers; it applies to the meetings they schedule. To turn off all chat for certain users, see turn off chat in Teams.
Policy changes can take a few hours to take effect everywhere. So test with a small group first.
Nederlandstalige versie: De chat in een Teams-vergadering uitschakelen of beperken