How To Mute Zoom To Silently Attend Online Conferences

“Oh my god Jenn, we can hear you!”

Cue panic and shock as Jenn scurries to mute her call, but she just doesn’t know what to do! And that’s on not muting yourself when you’re skiving and doing something that is totally not work-related in the midst of an important Zoom meeting with your bosses and colleagues.

Zoom is a pretty simple videoconferencing to use, but it can get the better of us at times. To help you save yourself from the embarrassment of unfortunate unmuted mishaps, we’ve put together a couple of pointers to show you how to mute Zoom when the need arises.

How To Mute Zoom as a Host

How to Mute Yourself

Zoom has a Host feature similar to admin rights on computers. It indicates that the person, who acts as the host of a Zoom meeting, is the facilitator and has full rights to the video conference. A host even has the power to mute everyone in a Zoom meeting to let selected participants share their ideas without interruptions. Depending on the rights provided by the host, participants may unmute themselves during Zoom calls.

If you’re the host, here’s how to mute yourself:

1. During an ongoing Zoom meeting, hover the cursor on the bottom leftmost part of the screen on the Zoom meeting window.
2. Click on the Mute button (microphone icon). Once you’re muted, other Zoom participants can no longer hear you.
3. When you’re on mute, the microphone icon will display a red diagonal dash across it. If you want to unmute yourself, click the Unmute microphone button.
   

How to Mute All Participants

As mentioned, the host has total control of the Zoom conference meetings. Muting all participants, for example, is possible with few clicks of a button. Follow these steps to mute all participants in a Zoom meeting:

1. On the bottom panel of an active Zoom meeting, click the Manage Participants button from the toolbar.
2. Once clicked, a sidebar on the right side displays the number of participants and their corresponding names.
3. Scroll down to the bottom part of the sidebar, and click Mute All.
4. A pop-up will display a confirmation message that says “Current and new participants will be muted.”

   

5. From the pop-up window, an option lets the host check/uncheck a dialog box that says “Allow participants to unmute themselves.”
6. After checking/unchecking the option, click Continue.

How To Mute Zoom for Specific Participants—Host

As the host, if you don’t want to mute all your Zoom participants at once, you have the option to mute specific people. The process is similar to muting all participants with just a few adjustments. 

1. On the bottom panel of an active Zoom meeting, click the Manage Participants button from the toolbar.
2. Once clicked, a sidebar located on the right side displays the number of participants and their corresponding names.
3. Find the person that you want to mute from the Participants list located on the sidebar from the right.
4. Hover the pointer beside the participant’s name. Once you see the Mute button, click on it.

1. While you’re on an active Zoom window, navigate to the toolbar at the bottom.
2. Click the Mute button with a microphone icon. Once you’re muted, you’re already inaudible to your colleagues.
3. When you’re on mute, the microphone icon will display a red diagonal dash across it. If you want to unmute yourself, click the Unmute microphone button.

Mute Zoom via Spacebar

The quickest way to mute yourself on Zoom is by long-pressing the spacebar on your keyboard.

Mute Zoom via Combination Keys

As the host, you can also mute others using combination keys on your keyboard. Hosts can easily mute and unmute all Zoom participants, excluding themselves. Here are the keystrokes to do it:

Unfortunately, there’s no instant way to mute Zoom chat notifications on both computers and mobile devices. There is, however, an alternate way to mute them through Zoom’s Settings page.

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to mute Zoom push/chat notifications:

1. Using a desktop or laptop, launch the Zoom app. Click Home from the toolbar on the top.
2. Click the Settings icon below your initials on the right part of the panel.
3. Click Chat and scroll to Push Notifications.
4. Under Push Notifications, choose the option that works best for you. You can either select All messages, Only private messages and mentions, or Nothing.
5. If you select Nothing, you can configure on the Channels that you don’t want to miss a notification. Click on the channel name.
6. Click Save.

1. On an active Zoom conference meeting via the mobile app, tap on your screen to display the bottom toolbar. To mute yourself, tap the Mute icon.
2. You can also long-tap the speaker icon on the leftmost part of the screen until the “X” icon appears on the speaker. For this option, it’s not the same with muting yourself or other Zoom participants. Instead, this option will just mute the sounds coming from your device. 
3. Tap the Unmute icon if it’s your turn to talk.

How to Mute Zoom Participants Using Mobile Devices

Specific Participants Only:

1. On your active Zoom call via mobile, tap Participants at the bottom part of the screen.
2. Tap the microphone icon beside each participant’s name to mute them.

All Participants:

1. On your active Zoom call via mobile, tap Participants at the bottom part of the screen.
2. Scroll down to the bottom-most part of the screen and tap Mute All.
3. Tap Mute All again when a pop-up appears on the screen.

Say Goodbye to Embarrassing Zoom Accidents

Zoom may be easy to use, but its functions can slip through our minds and cause us to make mistakes. And the next thing we know, we’re the next social media sensation for the wrong reasons. Now that you know how to mute yourself on Zoom, go forth and use this video conferencing tool with peace of mind.