The use of Meet, Google’s flagship application for video calls, is increasingly widespread among users who need to personalize their video conversations.
As you know very well with Google Meet you can change the background, put effects and make the most of many extensions directly from your web browser. Although it is a very important application, the first use could make you turn up your nose at the absence of audio.
Fortunately, it is not such a complex problem to solve, in the next few lines we will try to understand just how to activate the microphone on Meet without going crazy between settings and third-party applications.
As with any software, make sure you have installed the latest update and are using a device compatible with the application itself.
A practical guide to activating the microphone and managing audio on Google Meet
If you have never used Google Meet it is important to point out that you can do it both on your PC and on Android and iOS operating systems.
In order not to get confused, we will divide the next paragraphs in order to allow you a quick reading to solve this problem. Let’s see how to do it.
How to activate the microphone on Meet on the keyboard
Google Meet was especially designed for professional use; therefore, you can also count on the activation of the microphone directly from the keys of your keyboard, be it virtual or physical.
You can do this on both Windows and Mac; in the first case, you just need to start a video conference and access a meeting using the invitation code. While you are in a video conference you can press the CTRL + D combination to activate or deactivate the audio.
If, on the other hand, you are on an Apple operating system, once the videoconference has started you will have to press the cmd + D keys to activate or deactivate the microphone.
We recommend that you also use the combination CTRL + E and cmd + E to directly deactivate or activate the camera.
How to activate the microphone on Meet from PC and mobile
While you can activate the microphone on Meet with your keyboard, the traditional method of doing this isn’t quite that. Let’s see how to do it both from PC and on mobile devices.
Computer
- The first step to activate the microphone on Meet is to go to the official Google Meet site and create a new account or log in to the one you have already created.
- Click on login and enter your password by clicking on Login.
- Start a meeting by pressing the New Meeting button > Start a meeting now, and allow the application to use the microphone and camera.
- You just have to click on Allow to allow the browser to have permissions.
- If you do not find this window, you can go to Settings and click on Privacy.
- Click on Microphone, in the left column and in the Allow desktop apps to access the microphone section, move the lever to ON.
- Verify that Google Chrome software is on the app list. The same can be applied to the Camera, always placed in the left column.
Once this is done and the videoconference has started, just press, at the bottom, on the microphone icon to activate or deactivate the incoming and outgoing audio.
Android and iOS
As for the PC, also for your smartphone you need to give permissions and permissions for the microphone and camera.
In order for you to do it as quickly as possible with your tablet or smartphone, you must be careful when starting the application.
If you are using Meet for the first time, then you will see the notification to allow access to the microphone and camera from the beginning, but if you have limited consents in the past the procedure is longer.
Android:
- Go to Settings, enter the Privacy section> Manage permissions and select Microphones.
- Select Meet and give consent to access the microphone for this app by checking the Allow item.
- Then just start a new meeting and tap on the microphone icon to mute or unmute.
- If you can’t find the app on your Android device, you can download it from Play Store.
iOS :
- Go to Settings> Privacy> Microphone.
- Select Meet, after downloading it from the App Store, and give consent to access the microphone by moving the app slider to ON.
How to activate the microphone on Meet in the presentation
In order for you to activate the audio of the microphone on Meet in the presentation you necessarily need the PC version; in fact, on smartphones it is not possible to do this.
- Go to the official Meet site and log in with your Meet data or those of Google itself.
- Start a meeting by clicking on New meeting, or join an already started one.
- Then press the Present now button.
- Click on the word A card and immediately after check the item Share sound card.
- In the end, just select one of the contents of your screen listed and hit Share.
In case you want to deactivate it, just click on Stop sharing immediately after the meeting.
How to activate the microphone on Meet if it doesn’t work?
As you may have noticed, the procedure on how to activate the microphone on Meet is really very simple, but sometimes computer science plays tricks and you could find yourself a video conference without audio.
To solve these problems there are several simple resolutions to apply, let’s see the most used and practical ones to not go crazy in uninstallations and hard resets.
Restart the browser
The use on the web browser, mainly on Google Chrome, in many cases leads to unexpected bugs. Quitting the search engine may not be the ideal solution to the problem, as both the settings and the extensions themselves do not reset completely.
- In fact, restarting Google Chrome the windows would open again, restoring them as default.
- You therefore need to restart the browser in a more concrete way, to do so type the word chrome: // restart in the search bar and press Enter on the keyboard.
- At this point the microphone will be restored and you can activate or deactivate it as we have analyzed in the previous lines.
We recommend that you also clear your web browser cache to have absolute cleanliness. If you have difficulty doing this, I invite you to rely on our guide on junk file cleaners for PC.
Turn the sound back on
You may not know that when you are video conferencing users can mute your audio in order to minimize background noise.
However, this functionality is limited to only lowering the noise, in fact, users cannot reactivate the audio with Activate microphone.
- To do this you must necessarily intervene, just press on Activate the microphone in the lower part of the screen.
- By clicking on it you can both activate and deactivate it, but pay attention to the type of account you connect with.
If you are not the meeting organizer you will not be able to do this, only the latter is enabled to activate and deactivate the microphone.
How to activate the microphone from Windows System Settings
Maybe the problem is not with Google Meet or your web browser, in many cases it is the Windows operating system that does not recognize the microphone.
- If you need to connect a third-party microphone, all you have to do is connect it to your PC, go to Start> Settings> System and to Audio.
- From here select the Input section and choose the microphone or device you want to forward the voice to.
- This procedure is valid on both Windows 10 and Windows 11.
- We recommend that you test the microphone by clicking on Device Properties, in the Input section, and then on Start test, to check the quality of the microphone volume.
How to activate the microphone on Mac
If you have an Apple operating system then you will need to open System Preferences and immediately click on Audio. Several options will open to you, select Entrance.
Make sure the microphone is on and increase the volume with the ring on the microphone. The Mac will save the settings and the volume selected in the last change.
Restart your computer
When you’ve installed everything and tried all sorts of solutions, but just can’t fix the microphone problem in Meet, then the good old rule of restarting the operating system may be the last resort.
- Once the operating system has restarted, go back to Settings (icon with gear), from Start, and check that on System, the Input device, on the right, has the microphone present and active.
- Launch Google Meet and turn the microphone on or off by pressing Ctrl + E or cmd + E if you are on a Mac and cross your fingers.
For more information on resolving video and audio quality issues, you can take a look at the Google Meet Help.