While video-conferencing on Zoom, sometimes other people’s video feeds become too noisy. Hosts can mute everyone’s microphones to stop this. Whether someone stepped away to quiet a noisy parrot or is being disruptive, here’s how to mute them.
Hosts Only
On Zoom, only hosts can mute everyone in a conference. You can change the host of a meeting to delegate these powers. When you mute everyone, it turns off their microphones so you can’t hear them. The video stream is unaffected. Whether people can unmute themselves depends on a setting the host chooses during the muting process.
How to Mute All and Unmute All on Zoom
The following instructions work on PC, Mac, web, and tablet versions of Zoom, although the interface elements can be in slightly different locations than the screenshots provided.
With Zoom open, if the toolbar at the bottom of the screen/window isn’t visible, bring it up by clicking, tapping, or hovering your mouse cursor in that area. When it pops up, click “Participants” or “Manage Participants.”
In the Participants list, locate the button that says “Mute All.” Click or tap it.
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A confirmation box will pop up telling you that all current and new participants will be muted. There is a checkbox option that says “Allow Participants To Unmute Themselves.” Check this if you want each conference participant to be able to unmute themselves. Then click or tap “Continue.”
If you look at the Participants list now, you will see a crossed-out microphone icon next to everyone who is currently muted.
If you’d like to unmute everyone at once, locate the “Unmute All” button in the Participants list and click or tap on it.
After unmuting everyone, Zoom will confirm with a message somewhere on the screen that all participants have been unmuted.
All mutes will be lifted, and everyone on the call will now be able to hear everyone else.