How to Upload and Change Your Background in Microsoft Teams

Apr. 18, 2020

After Zoom took the lead invideo conferencingsolution for both masses and enterprises, Microsoft seems to have landed in a soup. The Redmond giant is in a hurry to implement many of theZoom featuresinto its Microsoft Teams app. After bringing a free tier to Teams, now the company has announced the background feature in Microsoft Teams, similar to virtual background in Zoom. We tested the feature and it worked sufficiently well. So in this article, we bring you a detailed guide on how to change your background in Microsoft Teams. Apart from that, we have also mentioned how to upload custom images as background in Microsoft Teams, even when the feature has not rolled out yet. So without losing any moment, let’s go through the article.

Change Your Background in Microsoft Teams

Similar to Zoom, you can now change the background in Microsoft Teams. However, it only supports images and the feature islimited to just Windows and macOS as of now.Apart from mobile apps, the feature is also not available on the web version of Microsoft Teams so keep that in mind. Now without further ado, let’s jump to the steps.

Note:Update the Microsoft Teams app to the latest version to get the background feature. You can download the latest build fromhere.

1. All you have to do is, justmove to the “Calls” or “Chat” menuand select your contacts. After that, hit the “video call” button to place a call.

2. Once the call is established, tap on thethree-dot menuand open “Show background effects”.

3. Now, you will get a set of images selected by Microsoft on the right pane. Here, click on the image and thenclick on “Preview” twice(there are some bugs) to get a sneak peek of the new background. After that, click on “Apply and turn on video” to make the final changes. And that is how you can change your background in Microsoft Teams.

4. In case, you want to justblur out the backgroundthen simply tap on “Blur background” at the top and you are done.

During the announcement of the background feature, Microsoft stated that currently, you can only change the background from the preloaded images on the Teams app. The ability to upload your own images will be coming in the future. But what if I tell you thatyou can access the feature right now? Well, there is always a way out. Follow along.

Note:As of now, this method only works on Windows computers having the Microsoft Teams desktop app.

1.  Open My Computer orany file explorer windowand paste the below path in the address bar.

2. After that,hit enterand it will directly take you to Microsoft Teams’ “Upload” directory. Now, move the images to the “Upload” folder that you want as Microsoft Teams background.

3. Finally, open the Microsoft Teams app and place a video call similar to the first section. Click on “Show background effects” andscroll to the bottomin the right pane. Here, you will find the image that you just moved into the Upload folder. Now, apply the image and voila, custom background in Microsoft Teams working as intended.

So that is how you can change the background in Microsoft Teams and also add your custom images through a simple hack. In my testing, the background feature in Microsoft Teams worked pretty well but it was surely not as smooth and distinguishable as Zoom. I suppose Microsoft will make significant improvements in the coming days and will also bring this neat feature to Android and iOS. Anyway, that is all from us. If you are having some trouble uploading background images to Microsoft Teams then drop a comment below. We will definitely help you out. And if you are looking for a freeZoom alternativethat does not require sign-up or app downloads then check outSkype Meet Now.

Passionate about Windows, ChromeOS, Android, security and privacy issues. Have a penchant to solve everyday computing problems.