Microsoft teams settings + Turn on New Meeting Experience

Microsoft teams is one of the rapid growth and widely used app from Office 365 or Microsoft 365 product suite. I know you have already started using Microsoft teams, so let us see a few very useful Microsoft teams settings that you should know.

By enabling Microsoft teams settings, you will get a new feature to use. I will also show you how to turn on New Meeting Experience in Microsoft Teams desktop app.

You may like the following settings:

  • Where is Microsoft teams settings
  • Set User Availability Settings in Microsoft Teams
  • Set custom status in Microsoft Teams
  • Change Theme in Microsoft Team
  • Change profile picture in Microsoft teams
  • Change language in Microsoft teams (date format)
  • Open Microsoft teams meetings in separate windows
  • How to Set Microsoft Teams to start automatically
  • Microsoft teams enable read receipts
  • See who read your message in a Team’s group chat

Where is Microsoft teams settings

First of all, let us see where is the Microsoft teams settings option is available.

Even if you are using Teams web or Microsoft teams desktop app, the settings option is available in the right corner like below:

microsoft teams settings
Microsoft teams settings

Read: How to connect to Microsoft Teams using PowerShell

Set User Availability Settings in Microsoft Teams

Now, we will see how to set user availability settings in Microsoft teams.

Click on the user icon, click on the Status like Available and then you can see the list of available status like:

  • Available
  • Busy
  • Do not disturb
  • Be right back
  • Appear away
Set User Availability Settings in Microsoft Teams

This is how we can set user availability Settings in Microsoft Teams.

You may like to read, How to use Microsoft Teams?

Set custom status in Microsoft Teams

Now, we will see how to set custom status in Microsoft teams.

Click on the Set status message like below:

set status message in teams

Then it will ask you to provide the message and also you can optionally check Show when people message me.

Also you can select when to clear the status message. Like below:

  • Never
  • 1 Hour
  • 4 Hours
  • Today
  • This week
  • Custom

Then click on Done like below:

microsoft team set status message
microsoft team set status message

Once you set the Status message, whenever a user starts sending a message to you (with @ your name mention), the user can see the custom message set by the user.

set status message in microsoft teams
set status message in microsoft teams

This is how we can set custom message in Microsoft teams.

Read You don’t have permission to create private meetings error in Microsoft Teams

Change Theme in Microsoft Team

Themes will provide a different look and feel to your teams. Go to the Teams Settings and then in the General Settings.

You can see by default there will be 3 themes provided like: Default, Dark and High contrast.

Change Theme in Microsoft Team
Change Theme in Microsoft Team

Here you can select from Dark and High contrast themes.

Change profile picture in Microsoft teams

The first thing probably you will want to do in Microsoft teams is to change profile picture in Microsoft teams.

Click on the Name icon (Here BS) and then it will open the Settings window. Here click on Change picture link under your name like below:

Change profile picture in Microsoft teams
Change profile picture in Microsoft teams

This will open the Change your profile picture dialog box, where you can you will see the below two options:

  • Upload picture
  • Remove picture
upload profile picture in Microsoft teams
upload profile picture in Microsoft teams

Just click on the Upload picture and it will allow you to browse your picture. Once you select a picture, you can see the picture and make sure to click on the Save button.

microsoft teams change profile picture

Once you click on the Save button you can see the profile picture got updated.

microsoft teams upload profile picture
microsoft teams upload profile picture

Even you can see the profile picture also updated in Microsoft teams web.

how to upload a picture to microsoft teams

This is how we can change profile picture in Microsoft teams.

Change language in Microsoft teams (date format)

Now, we will see how to change language, date time format in Microsoft teams easily.

Open Teams desktop app, Click on your Name and then click on Settings.

Then click on General -> go to the Language section.

There you can change the App Language, based on the language selection, the language, and date format. The date format will be changed based on the Language you will select.

Make sure to restart Microsoft teams the changes to reflect.

Change language in Microsoft teams

This is so easy to change language and date format in Microsoft teams.

Open Microsoft teams meetings in separate windows

Microsoft now comes up with a new feature to open team meetings in a separate window. It was really wired before, the meeting will open in the same window. If you are in chat with someone then it is confusing.

You might also get a notification like below, here you can enable by clicking on the Turn on now button.

Open Microsoft teams meetings in separate windows

To enable open teams meetings in separate windows, you can go to Settings -> General -> then check the checkbox “Turn on new meeting experience (New meetings and calls will open in separate windows. Requires restarting teams)” like below:

open teams meetings in separate windows

Once you enable this option, whenever you start a meeting or start a call, the meeting will open in a new window like below:

teams meetings in separate windows

This is how we can enable open teams meetings in separate windows in Microsoft teams.

Note: This option will not available in Microsoft Teams Web App.

How to Set Microsoft Teams to start automatically

Now, we will see how to set teams to start automatically.

We can set Microsoft teams to start automatically in the background when you open your laptop or desktop. Even if you close the teams app, it will keep running in the background. So anyone messages or calls you, you can receive easily without having the app in the taskbar.

Open Microsoft Teams Settings and then click on General and then under Application you will see below 3 options:

  • Auto-start application
  • Open application in background
  • On close, keep the application running

If you will select the Auto-start application checkbox, then the application will start automatically when you will start your device maybe laptop or desktop.

If you will select Open application in background, it will be running in the background.

If you will select On close, keep the application running, the application will keep running after you close your window.

set teams to start automatically
set teams to start automatically

Note: This option will not available in Microsoft Teams Web App.

Microsoft teams enable read receipts

Wondering how to know if someone read or seen your messages in Microsoft teams?

Well, there is an option available in Microsoft teams as Read receipts.

Once this option is enabled, when users read your message a Seen icon will appear next to the chat like below:

teams enable read receipts
teams enable read receipts

By default Read receipts are enabled for all the users.

But if you want to disable Read receipts, then go to the Teams Settings page.

Then click on Privacy-> Read receipts. There you can On/Off Read receipts.

Microsoft teams enable read receipts
Microsoft teams on/off read receipts

So if you want to know how to turn off read receipts in teams, this is how you can do.

Note:

  • Only enabling Read receipts in your teams is not enough. With whom you are chatting should also turn On the read receipts, then only you can see the notification.
  • If you are chatting with an external user in Microsoft teams, then you will not be able to see the read receipts or the seen icon will not appear.
  • The read receipt will not appear if the user sees the message in a notification or in the activity feed.

See who read your message in a Team’s group chat

We can also see who read your message in a group chat in Microsoft teams.

Open the group chat, click on the […] right to your group message. Then click Read by…. and there you can see all people names like below:

See who read your message in a Team's group chat
See who read your message in a Team’s group chat

This is how we can view who saw message in a teams group chat.

You may like the following Microsoft teams tutorials:

In this Microsoft teams tutorial, we discussed:

  • Where is Microsoft teams settings
  • Set User Availability Settings in Microsoft Teams
  • Set custom status in Microsoft Teams
  • Change Theme in Microsoft Team
  • Change profile picture in Microsoft teams
  • Change language in Microsoft teams (date format)
  • Open Microsoft teams meetings in separate windows
  • How to Set Microsoft Teams to start automatically
  • Turn on or turn off read receipts in Microsoft teams
  • See who read your message in a Team’s group chat
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