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Microsoft is finally making it easier to mute Teams without hiding from your boss
Microsoft Teams will soon let you temporarily pause notifications for a set period of time. Teams already has a variety of mute functions, but the new feature should make it easier to quiet down anything from Teams for a bit.
The feature starts rolling out this month and should be available to all users by early October.
The Microsoft 365 Message Center Archive has a record of the change:
"Microsoft Teams will introduce a new capability that allows users to temporarily pause notifications for a selected period of time. This feature gives users greater control over interruptions, helps reduce notification overload, and enables focused work, meetings, and other activities without requiring changes to existing notification settings."
All versions of Teams will have the option to temporarily pause Teams notifications for a set duration. The feature will be accessible through the profile menu in the upper-right corner of Teams.
The new capability in Teams is a bit like "Focus" in Windows 11, though it's specific to Teams. If you're working on a project, you may want to receive notifications through Windows 11 but keep Teams quiet.
Many workers have to use a variety of communication platforms. Pausing Teams notifications for a while could come in handy when presenting on Zoom. Microsoft accidentally shared discussions about other companies during a presentation by having a Teams notification appear. Pausing notifications would have prevented that.
It appears that one of the key differences in using this new feature compared to Do Not Disturb is how you'll appear to your colleagues. Setting Teams to Do Not Disturb is simple and effective, but it changes your public status indicator to red. I believe pausing notifications will leave your status unchanged.
Muting channels in Teams is also an existing feature, but it is done on a per-channel or per-chat basis. Pausing notifications should work across the board.
Neowin first spotted the new feature for Teams, but at the time details were scarce. Microsoft has since detailed how the feature will work and how the option differs from other methods of muting Teams.
It's unclear if pausing notifications will sync across all of your devices or if it is on a per-instance basis. I would hope there is an option to sync the pausing or pick which devices will continue to receive notifications.
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