Accessibility comes to Google Meet with mute toggles to keyboard
Google Meet users will be happy to find that their space button will now double as a mute toggle in Google Meet’s latest update. Google announced through their own blog that Google Meet would receive a new suite of updates now that the popular video conferencing service has now hit web devices. This update should be dropping on the 7th of September, but it could take up to two weeks for the rollout to be universal across platforms.
This will be useful for those of us who join our video calls with the mute on by default (definitely me) and those who regularly forget to mute their microphones after they’re done speaking (you know who you are). While this is a little late to the game, given its competitors like BlueJeans and Zoom have already had features like this enabled on their platforms. It’s nonetheless a great feature to add to Google Meets’ repertoire.
Like with most Google products you need to be sure that you turn these on in their settings to enable the toggles.
This update comes as a slew of other accessibility features come to Google Meet namely:
Accessible info (requires screen reader)
Announce who is currently speaking
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + s
PC: Ctrl + Alt + s
Announce current information about the room
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + i
PC: Ctrl + Alt + i
Meeting controls
Show or hide captions
Mac: c
PC: c
Turn on or off camera
Mac: ⌘ + e
PC: Ctrl + e
Mute or unmute your microphone
Mac: ⌘ + d
PC: Ctrl + d
Increase the number of participant tiles
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + k
PC: Ctrl + Alt + k
Decrease the number of participant tiles
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + j
PC: Ctrl + Alt + j
Show or hide meeting chat window
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + c
PC: Ctrl + Alt + c
Show or hide participants
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + p
PC: Ctrl + Alt + p
Raise or lower your hand
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + h
PC: Ctrl + Alt + h
Minimize or expand your video
Mac: Ctrl + ⌘ + m
PC: Ctrl + Alt + m
Hopefully, these shortcuts will prove helpful to all sorts of Google Meet Users across the web.