Microsoft Teams backgrounds: size and design tips

A good Microsoft Teams background is a 16:9 image at 1920×1080 pixels, saved as a JPG or PNG, with soft colour behind your head and any words kept small near the top. Microsoft asks for a JPG, PNG or BMP file, and 1920×1080 is the size to design at because it matches the shape of a webcam frame and stays sharp when someone pins you full screen. The rest of this guide covers the details that make a Teams background look deliberate in a grid of colleagues, and how to give a whole team a set that matches.

Teams background size and file format

Gradients are the one place where format matters. Heavy JPEG compression turns smooth colour into visible steps, and Teams compresses video again on top. Export a PNG, or a JPG at high quality, and add a fine grain so the blend survives both. PNG vs JPG explains why smooth gradients suffer most.

How to change your background in Teams

1. 1

   Open the effects panel

   Before joining, use the background or video effects option on the join screen. During a meeting, open the More menu and choose the video effects or background settings.

2. 2

   Add your own image

   Choose Add new, or the plus button, and pick your JPG, PNG or BMP file. It joins the list of backgrounds you can reuse.

3. 3

   Preview, then apply

   Select it, check your preview and apply. Teams remembers it for later meetings.

4. 4

   Ask a colleague what they see

   Your preview can look mirrored. A quick check with someone else confirms your text reads the right way round.

Menu names shift between versions of Teams and between the desktop, web and mobile apps, but the flow is always the same: effects, add your image, apply. If your organisation manages Teams centrally, custom uploads may be switched off, and only backgrounds provided by your IT team will appear.

Designing around the Teams tile

Teams draws your name in a label at the bottom of your video tile, and on a large call your tile is small and shares the screen with everyone else. That gives you two rules. Keep words high, because the bottom edge already has a label and your shoulders. Keep them short, because a tile in a grid of nine is only a few centimetres wide.

• Upper left: the best spot for a company name or logo, since it is not covered by you or the name label.
• Behind your head: a soft lift in brightness, so you separate cleanly from the background.
• Lower third: plain. Teams' label and your shoulders already fill it.
• Outer 5 percent: keep it clear, since tiles crop slightly on different screens and phones.

Colours that work in a Teams meeting

Background replacement guesses which pixels are you, frame by frame, and it gets hair and hands wrong some of the time. On a soft gradient those mistakes are nearly invisible; on a bookshelf photo they flicker. Choose mid to deep tones close to the warmth of your room's light, and avoid pure white, which tends to make faces look grey on a webcam.

Blur is the other built in choice, and it is fine for a quick internal call. An image is better when you want to look the same every time, or when your real room changes from day to day. Blurred backgrounds covers when blur is the better pick.

A branded Teams background set for your company

One background for everyone looks tidy but rigid, and people quietly stop using it. A small set works better: a few designs in the brand's colours that each suit a different kind of meeting. Everyone stays recognisably part of the same company, and nobody feels like a uniform.

1. 1

   Choose two or three designs

   Everyday, client facing and one for recorded sessions or town halls. More than that and nobody can choose.

2. 2

   Use the brand's deep tones

   Bright brand colours make a harsh wall. Use a deep version as the ground and save the bright one for the logo.

3. 3

   Make personal versions in bulk

   Put names and roles in a spreadsheet and create one client background per person, rather than asking everyone to type their own.

4. 4

   Share them where people already look

   Pin the files in a Teams channel with three lines of instructions, and add them to your brand guidelines.

Gradiently handles the bulk step directly: with Pro, design one client background, connect a CSV of names and roles to its text, review every version and create them all at once. The brand kit keeps the logo and fonts consistent, and the Designer can lay out the first version for you from a sentence. For the wider thinking, see brand consistency and employer branding design.

The same files work in other apps too. Zoom virtual backgrounds and Google Meet backgrounds cover the small differences in each.