How to Mute All Participants at Once in Google Meet

Hosting large virtual meetings, corporate webinars, or online classes often comes with unexpected audio distractions. Background sirens, barking pets, mechanical keyboard clicking, and acoustic feedback loops can quickly overwhelm a video call, making it difficult for the speaker to be heard clearly.

Rather than hunting through dozens of participant tiles to identify and silence noisy microphones individually, Google Meet includes a native Mute All function. Available to meeting hosts and co-hosts on both desktop browsers and mobile apps, this feature instantly mutes every attendee simultaneously with a single confirmation.

Meeting Host Requirements

To use the Mute All capability in Google Meet, you must possess host privileges:

• You must be the meeting organiser, a designated co-host, or a Google Workspace user who initiated the video call.
• Standard participants cannot mute everyone; they can only mute individual participants or themselves.

Muting All Participants on Desktop (Google Chrome and Other Browsers)

Silencing everyone during a live session takes only a couple of clicks from the call interface:

1. In your active Google Meet call, look at the bottom-right control panel.
2. Click the People icon (represented by the silhouette of two people) to open the attendees sidebar.
3. At the top of the participant list, click the Mute all button.
4. A pop-up dialogue box will appear stating: “Mute all participants? This will mute everyone in the call except you. Participants will be able to unmute themselves whenever they want.”
5. Click Mute to confirm.

Every participant’s microphone will immediately switch to muted, and a small pop-up notification will alert attendees that they have been silenced by the host.

Muting All Participants on the Google Meet Mobile App (Android and iOS)

If you are moderating a meeting from your smartphone or tablet:

1. Tap the screen to reveal the call controls.
2. Tap the Meeting title or the People icon at the top of your display.
3. In the People tab, tap Mute all.
4. Confirm the prompt by tapping Mute.

Can a Host Unmute Participants in Google Meet?

For privacy and security reasons, Google Meet does not allow hosts to unmute another person’s microphone remotely. Once you trigger the Mute All function:

• Attendees remain muted until they manually click or tap their own microphone button to speak.
• If an attendee needs to ask a question, recommend that they use the Raise hand feature so you can call on them orderly before they unmute.

Preventing Participants from Unmuting (Turn Off Microphones)

In formal presentations, auditoriums, or webinars where you want complete silence without attendees accidentally unmuting themselves, you can lock microphone permissions entirely:

1. Click the Host controls icon (the blue padlock symbol) in the bottom-right corner of the Meet window.
2. Under the Meeting permissions section, locate the toggle for Turn on their microphone.
3. Switch the toggle to the Off position.

With this lock engaged, participants cannot unmute their microphones under any circumstances until you switch the permission back on, ensuring uninterrupted delivery throughout your presentation.