How to always join a Zoom call on mute

Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff.

All of us take a ton of Zoom calls as part of the new normal. A few days ago, I joined one while I was “chatting” with my cat. I had assumed that I’d be muted, but I was wrong.

Luckily, folks on the call just heard my cat for a few seconds. That made me realize that there should be a setting to join a call always on mute. Thankfully, I found it. Here’s how you can enable it:

• Open the Zoom app on your desktop.
• Head to Preferences > Audio.
• Check the “Mute microphone when joining a meeting”  box.

Now, whenever you join a meeting, you’ll be automatically muted until you manually unmute yourself. So you can carry on yelling at anyone without fear of being caught.

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If you want to turn off your video by default, you could go to Preferences > Video, and select a similar option.

This will ensure that you don’t have to look picture-perfect while joining a call, and you could take them in your pajamas.

While you’re at it, you might also want to read our guide for checking your video quality before joining a Google Meet call.