Google Meet hosts will be able to keep participant mics and cameras off

Google Meet hosts will soon be able to turn off participants’ microphones or cameras and prevent them from turning them back on, the company announced in a Workspace blog. The feature could be a useful way for hosts to keep noisy or rowdy attendees from continually interrupting meetings even after they have already been muted.

The microphone and camera lock feature will be off by default; hosts will have to turn it on during meetings if they want to use it. If your meeting has breakout rooms, any audio and / or video locks made in the main will apply in those, too. The opposite isn’t true, though, meaning that locks applied in individual breakout rooms won’t apply to other breakout rooms or the main room.

If you’re using older versions of the apps on iOS and Android that don’t support the feature, you’ll be kicked from the meeting if the hosts turns on the locks; if they’re turned on ahead of the meeting and you’re on one of those older apps, you won’t be able to join the meeting at all. Google says that turning off the locks will let people using older apps participate in a meeting.

All Google Workspace customers will have access to the feature, which began rolling out for users on the Rapid Release tracks on Thursday. It will start rolling out for those on the Scheduled Release track on November 1st.