How to use Custom Backgrounds in Microsoft Teams

If your room is messy and you do not want to show it during a conference or meeting with someone, you can use a custom background in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams has started offering this functionality, which allows users to set a custom image as the background. You can use it apart from using the blur effects.

Nowadays, people are using Microsoft Teams to communicate with other office employees and team members from home. As all of you might not have uncluttered surroundings, it is quite challenging to ditch the mess in your room from the frame. If you often face this problem while being in a video call with other people, you can make use of this new functionality.

Although Microsoft has not started offering a dedicated option to include custom backgrounds, there is a workaround. In other words, you can either use some preset backgrounds or your custom image as you wish.

Use Custom Backgrounds in Microsoft Teams

To use custom backgrounds in Microsoft Teams, follow these steps-

1. Get an image that you want to show in the background.
2. Open the Uploads folder in the File Explorer.
3. Paste your image in that folder.
4. Make a video call to someone.
5. Click the three-dotted icon.
6. Select Show background effects.
7. Choose the image from the list.

You first need to find an image you want to show as the background when you are in a video call or conference. You can download it from anywhere or make it yourself in any software like Paint. Make sure your image is not too big in size or dimension; there is no official confirmation, though. Also, it should have a standard format, such as .jpg, .png, etc.

UPDATE: You can now download custom backgrounds for Teams from Microsoft.

Now, open up the Uploads folder in the File Explorer. For that, press Win+R to use the Run prompt, and paste this-

%AppData%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\Uploads

After that, hit the Enter button to open up that folder.

Here you need to paste the image that you created earlier. You can paste one or multiple images as per your requirements. After pasting, it is time for the test.

For that, open the Microsoft Teams app on your computer, and make a video call to someone.

When you are in the call, click the three-dotted icon (More actions) visible on your screen and select Show background effects option.

It should show you all the preset and custom images that are available to be set as the background. You can choose any image from the list and check the preview. If you are happy with something, click the Apply button.

Now that image should be visible as the background during a video call.

Read: Free Virtual Background images for Teams.

If you are using the Microsoft Teams app on a Mac computer and you want to use a custom background wallpaper in Microsoft teams, you need to paste the image here-

/users/your_username/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/Backgrounds/Uploads

Don’t forget to replace “your_username” with the original username.

Alternatively, you can go to your home screen and click the Go button visible on the top menu bar. When the list is visible, press the Option key. Here you can find the Library option on the list. Afterward, you can navigate to the folder mentioned above and paste your image accordingly. Following that, setting a custom background in Microsoft Teams is the same as in Windows.

If you do not see the Show background effects option after clicking the three-dotted button, you need to update it to the latest version. To do so, click on your profile picture and select the Check for updates option.

We hope you find this much-requested feature useful.