How to: Push-to-Talk, Push-to-Mute and Toggle Mute in Microsoft Teams

Whether you like it or not, Microsoft Teams is a widely used product and many use it for online meetings. Despite being a big product from a big company, the customization options it offers with regards to voice communication are severely lacking.

The default in Teams is Open Mic with a global keybind for toggle mute, CTRL-SHIFT-M, which you can’t change. It also has temporary unmute (ie. Push-to-Talk) bound to CTRL-SPACE, but it only works when the window is active (and not while you’re typing in the chat box).

Furthermore, unless the part of the Teams window that shows the mute state of the mic is visible, there is no way to know what the state is without bringing the window to the front.

AutoPTT trivially solves all of these problems. You can use whatever keybinds you like, and they work regardless of which window is active.

ATTENTION: Keep the mic unmuted in Teams and let AutoPTT handle its state instead.

Always see state of the mic

Use AutoPTT’s Overlay to stay informed on the state of the mic. Check out the sections below to see what the Overlay looks like.

Push-to-Talk (even if Teams is in the background)

Active (Unmuted)
Open Mic to PTT (Manual) - Active
Inactive (Muted)
Open Mic to PTT (Manual) - Inactive

For Push-to-Talk, you’ll want to use AutoPTT’s Open Mic to PTT (Manual) activation mode. Your mic is muted when the Push-to-Talk key is not pressed, and unmuted when it is.

Here’s what you should do with a fresh installation of AutoPTT:

  • Select your mic in the Device field
  • Set Activation Mode to Open Mic to PTT (Manual)
  • Set Push-to-Talk (PTT) 1 or Seondary PTT 1 to whatever you want (the latter supports key combinations; the former does not)

Toggle Mute (even if Teams is in the background)

Unmuted
Toggle Mute - Active
Muted
Toggle Mute - Inactive

Instructions:

  • Select your mic in the Device field
  • Under Other Keys, set a hotkey for Mode: Manual/Open Mic to PTT (Manual) – pressing it will switch between these two modes.

How it works is that in Manual mode your mic is always unmuted, while in Open Mic to PTT (Manual) mode it is always muted (unless you press the PTT key, which would make it Push-to-Talk).

Push-to-Mute (even if Teams is in the background)

Unmuted
Push-to-Mute - Active
Muted
Push-to-Mute - Inactive

Instructions:

  • Select your mic in the Device field
  • Set Activation Mode to Manual
  • Under Other Keys, set a hotkey for Push-to-Mute (Global)

Again, Manual mode ensures that your mic is always unmuted. And like the name suggests, pressing the Push-to-Mute (Global) forces the mic to be muted.

Give it a try!

AutoPTT is free for the first month, so why not try it out?

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