Google Meet gets push-to-talk via spacebar

Do you have your microphone switched off during a Google Meet, but suddenly you realize that you have to say something? Google ensures that you do not have to quickly use your mouse: you only have to hold down your space bar a little longer.

Google Meet

Everyone knows that: you are in an online meeting and suddenly a colleague says: [vul hier je naam in] say something about it. [Vul hier je naam in]?” Then you always have colleagues who do not have the patience to wait until you are at your laptop, have used your mouse, and so on. They will then ask again whether you are in the call or a kind of ‘Hello?’ calling, making it seem like you’re not in order. Or because that person says something, your voice ebbs away completely.

So it is useful to be able to unmute yourself as soon as possible. Google Meet understands that and therefore comes up with a good solution for muted: you can hold down your space bar longer to unmute yourself. That works via push-to-talk, which actually means that it has a kind of walkie-talkie effect. As long as you hold down your spacebar, you are off mute. If you let go of it, you’ll be muted again.

Faster off mute

The advantage of this is not only that you get off mute faster: it also helps people who forget to mute themselves after speaking. When a truck drives by or a cat starts meowing, the whole community can enjoy it. Also, without those things it sometimes causes some noise on the line, so it’s better if everyone is muted, except the person who has to do the talking.

You have to turn on the spacebar function yourself, because it is turned off by default. You do this in the Google Meet Settings. The feature is coming to Workspace users and people with a personal Google Account, so basically everyone. You can expect the function in the coming weeks, although you will have to actively search the settings yourself to actually enable it.

This function was already available via separate Chrome extensions, but is now already integrated into Google Meet itself.

Have you ever forgotten to turn your mute back on at the wrong time? Share your experiences in the comments below this article.