How to Use Together Mode and View Options in Teams

Applies to: Microsoft Teams (Windows, macOS, web)
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-29

Summary

Teams gives you five ways to lay out a meeting, and the default grid is rarely the best one. This article covers the whole View menu — Gallery, Large gallery, Together mode, Focus, and Full screen — plus changing Together mode scenes, the difference between pinning and spotlighting, and how to get your own video preview off your screen when it is distracting you.

Prerequisites

• Microsoft Teams desktop app or the Teams web app. View options are reduced on mobile.
• An active meeting with your camera available. Layout changes apply during a call, not before it.
• No admin rights required. Some layouts need a minimum number of participants, noted in each step.

Instructions

1. Open the View menu

Everything in this article starts from the same control.

1. Join a meeting. The meeting toolbar sits along the top of the window.
2. Look at the right-hand end of the toolbar for View — a rectangular grid icon with the word View beside it.
3. Click View. A dropdown lists the layouts: Gallery, Large gallery, Together mode, Focus, and Full screen.
4. Options that are unavailable appear dimmed rather than hidden. Hovering a dimmed option shows the reason.

Note: In older Teams builds the same options live under ⋯ (More actions) instead of a dedicated View button. The names and behaviour are identical.

2. Switch between Gallery, Large gallery, Focus, and Full screen

Four layouts cover almost every meeting.

• Gallery — the default. Shows a grid of video tiles, with the active speaker enlarged. Best for calls of up to about nine people.
• Large gallery — shows up to 49 participants at once in a dense grid. It becomes selectable once roughly ten people have their cameras on, and stays dimmed below that. Best for training sessions and workshops where you want to read the room.
• Focus — hides every video tile and fills the window with the shared content. It only appears while somebody is sharing their screen. Best for reading a spreadsheet or dense slide in a call you are not presenting in.
• Full screen — expands the Teams window to cover your whole display and hides the surrounding app chrome. Press Esc to leave it.

To apply any of these, click View and select the layout. The change takes effect immediately and affects your screen only.

Verification: The View menu shows a tick beside the layout currently in use. Reopen it after selecting to confirm the change registered.

3. Turn on Together mode

Together mode cuts every participant out of their own background and seats them in one shared scene — an auditorium, a coffee shop, a meeting room. It reads as a group in one place rather than a wall of separate boxes, which is why it earns its keep on large recurring calls where the grid starts to feel impersonal.

1. Click View in the meeting toolbar.
2. Select Together mode. The grid dissolves and every participant appears seated in a shared scene.
3. Your own seat is outlined so you can find yourself.
4. To leave, click View and select Gallery.

Note: Together mode needs at least five people in the meeting. Below that it stays dimmed with a tooltip explaining the minimum. It also works best when participants have their cameras on — anyone with video off appears as their profile picture in their seat.

Together mode is a per-person choice. Switching to it changes nothing for your colleagues, and they can sit in Gallery while you sit in the auditorium.

4. Change the Together mode scene

The default auditorium is one of many.

1. With Together mode active, click Change scene in the lower-left corner of the meeting window, beneath the scene itself.
2. A scene gallery opens showing thumbnails — auditorium, conference room, lounge, classroom, and seasonal options that vary by tenant.
3. Click a thumbnail to preview it, then click Apply. The scene changes on your screen.
4. If you are the organizer, co-organizer, or a presenter, the panel also shows a Change scene for everyone toggle. Turn it on before clicking Apply to push the scene to all attendees.

Tip: Scene capacity varies. A scene built for 16 seats cannot hold a 40-person call, so Teams greys out scenes that are too small for the current headcount. Pick a larger scene rather than assuming the option is broken.

To move where you sit, drag your own image to an empty seat in the scene. Teams remembers your position for the rest of the call.

5. Pin a participant for yourself

Pinning keeps one person large on your screen regardless of who is speaking. It is a personal setting — nobody else is affected, and nobody is told you did it.

1. Find the person's video tile, or find their name in the People panel (click People in the toolbar to open it).
2. Right-click the tile, or click ⋯ (More options) on the tile or beside their name.
3. Select Pin for me. Their video enlarges and stays put while other tiles shuffle around it.
4. Repeat for additional people to pin several at once.
5. To undo it, right-click the pinned tile and select Unpin.

Verification: A small pin icon appears in the corner of the pinned tile. It is visible on your screen only.

6. Spotlight a participant for everyone

Spotlighting is the shared version of pinning: it forces one video to the front of every attendee's screen. Only organizers, co-organizers, and presenters can do it.

1. Right-click the participant's video tile, or click ⋯ beside their name in the People panel.
2. Select Spotlight for everyone.
3. Confirm at the prompt. The chosen video enlarges on every attendee's screen and a Spotlighted label appears on the tile.
4. Repeat to spotlight up to seven people at once — useful for a panel discussion.
5. To release it, right-click the spotlighted tile and select Stop spotlighting.

The practical distinction is worth committing to memory: pin is only for you, spotlight is for everyone. Pin when you want to watch the sign language interpreter. Spotlight when you want 200 people looking at the presenter.

Note: If Spotlight for everyone is missing from the menu, you are an attendee rather than a presenter. Ask the organizer: "Could you make me a presenter so I can spotlight the speaker?" Roles are covered in Understanding Teams Meetings — Features, Roles, and Best Practices.

7. Hide your own video preview

Watching yourself for an hour is a genuine drain on attention. Hiding your preview does not turn your camera off — colleagues still see you normally.

1. Find your own video, shown either as a tile in the grid or as a small floating window in a corner of the meeting.
2. Hover over it and click ⋯ (More options), or right-click it.
3. Select Hide for me. Your tile disappears from your layout and the remaining videos expand to fill the space.
4. To bring it back, click View and select Show my video, or use the same ⋯ menu on the small self-preview thumbnail that remains near the toolbar.

Verification: Your camera button in the toolbar still reads Camera on. That confirms you are hidden from yourself, not from the meeting.

Troubleshooting

TIP

Before a large recurring call, set your layout once and leave it. Teams remembers your last choice per meeting series, so a weekly all-hands opens in Together mode every week without you touching the View menu again.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
Together mode is dimmed in the View menu	Fewer than five participants	Together mode needs at least five people in the call. Wait for more attendees to join, then reopen View.
Large gallery is dimmed	Not enough cameras switched on	Large gallery becomes available once roughly ten participants have video on. In a camera-off meeting it stays unavailable by design.
Focus is missing from the View menu	Nobody is sharing content	Focus only appears while a screen or file is being shared. Ask the presenter to start sharing, or see How to Share Your Screen in a Teams Meeting.
Your layout changed on its own mid-meeting	Someone spotlighted a participant	A spotlight overrides individual layouts. Ask the organizer or a presenter to select Stop spotlighting on that tile.
Your Together mode seat keeps moving	Seats reassign as people join and leave	Drag your image to the seat you want. Teams holds that position for the rest of the call.
The View menu is missing entirely	Using Teams on mobile or an older web build	Layout options are limited on the mobile app and on some browser builds. Join from the Teams desktop app for the full set.

Related Articles

• Understanding Teams Meetings — Features, Roles, and Best Practices
• How to Set Up Background Effects in Teams
• How to Share Your Screen in a Teams Meeting
• How to Use Breakout Rooms in a Teams Meeting
• How to Record a Teams Meeting
• How to Enable Live Captions in Teams and Windows

Did this solve your problem?