How to Control the Lobby and Who Can Present in Teams (Meeting Options Explained)

The lobby is Teams' front door. Set it up well and the right people walk straight in while strangers wait; set it up badly and you spend the first five minutes clicking Admit. Here's what each meeting option does.

Before the meeting: open the meeting in your Calendar and click Meeting options at the top (or ⋯ > Meeting options).

During the meeting: click ⋯ More > Settings > Meeting options.

Changes save instantly and apply to everyone, including people already in the meeting.

This decides who joins straight away and who waits:

• Everyone — nobody waits. Fine for a trusted team.
• People in my organisation and guests — the usual default.
• People in my organisation — outside visitors wait to be admitted.
• People I invite — anyone who wasn't on the invite waits.
• Only organisers and co-organisers — everyone else waits.

Set People dialling in can bypass the lobby separately for phone callers.

Presenters can share their screen, mute others, admit people and record. Attendees can't.

• Everyone — the default for small meetings.
• People in my organisation and guests
• Specific people — pick names from the invite.
• Only organisers and co-organisers — the safest choice for training or public sessions.

You can change someone's role mid-meeting: click People, hover over them and choose Make a presenter or Make an attendee.

Add up to 10 co-organisers. They get the same powers as you, which means you're not the only one who can admit people or start breakout rooms.

• Allow mic for attendees and Allow camera for attendees — switch these off for a broadcast-style meeting.
• Meeting chat — on, off, or in-meeting only.
• Allow reactions — turn off for very large events.
• Record automatically — starts recording the moment the meeting begins.
• Enable Q&A — a moderated question panel instead of a free-for-all chat.

When someone is waiting, a notification appears. Click Admit, or click People to see everyone waiting and admit them one by one or Admit all. Click X to turn someone away.

Once everyone has arrived, click People > ⋯ > Lock the meeting. Nobody else can join, even with the link, until you unlock it.

Guests say they're stuck in the lobby. Someone with a presenter role needs to admit them. Add a co-organiser so it isn't only you.

A presenter option is greyed out. Only the organiser and co-organisers can change meeting options.

People keep sharing their screen by accident. Set Who can present to Specific people or Only organisers.

Open Meeting options before you start. Set Who can bypass the lobby to match who's coming, limit Who can present for anything bigger than a team chat, and add a co-organiser so admitting people isn't your job alone.