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Teams doesn't have a setting to use the default audio devices set in Windows. It just remembers its own (rather buried) device settings, and if those devices aren't present, decides on its own what devices you'll use. (And you'll like it, mister.)

I move between workstations with different audio setups. Sometimes I change my default audio device while at one workstation - maybe I want to use my headset, maybe the laptop speakers are good enough. Teams ignores me and does what it wants.

Zoom and other conferencing apps have an option to use whatever the default audio devices set in Windows for meetings. How can we force Teams to do the same?

(If it were quick and easy to change the audio devices like in Zoom, this wouldn't be as much of a problem.)

Update (2023-08-04): The reason for this behaviour appears to be Teams protecting you from attempting to use a device that doesn't exist. Teams seems to read the list of audio device drivers that are present and functioning. Computer 2 is missing the headphones of computer 1, so the driver is unavailable to Teams. Teams now looks at the order of present and functioning drivers to determine which device to use when a new meeting is started. Removing a driver is easy. It's not clear how we can influence the order of availability of drivers to the system. The web version of teams just asks Windows to use its default devices - a very different and saner approach.

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3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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Answer : You can't, or at least not easily.

This is one of the most-asked features for Microsoft Teams, and perhaps one of the most ignored by the developers.

An example of user frustration can be found in the post Default audio devices in teams from 2020, where users vent their anger of Microsoft incompetence. Once Teams chooses the wrong device, the only solution was to unplug all other devices in order to force it to use the right device.

You might be able to use an audio-routing product, such as the VB-CABLE Virtual Audio Device to connect forcefully Teams to an audio device, but I have never tried this configuration.

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    Interesting idea re: virtual audio cables! Hadn't considered that route. Hopefully IT will let me experiment. I coincidentally am one of the upvoters on that default audio devices in Teams thread. :-)
    – Neman
    Commented May 26, 2023 at 17:10
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A more generic answer - you can't freely override application's audio device handling, that includes Microsoft Teams especially, since it's a closed source application.

Applications are coded to use devices as they desire, with help of system APIs such as Windows Core Audio, which shouldn't be modified even if they could, as that could break a bunch of other applications or parts of the system.

An idea would be to use e.g. a portable AutoHotKey script that you'd have on pendrive and which would automatically set proper device(s) in settings of Teams by clicking on proper inputs. Other than that, you can only complain and likely get bounced back by corpo wall.

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    I use AHK to solve so many of my problems it might as well be called into service here. The challenge of telling it how to click the right thing on the screen is always a joy...
    – Neman
    Commented May 26, 2023 at 17:12
  • @Neman Since the setting is apparently saved somewhere, it might make more sense to have a script modify the saved value to match the default audio device. It would just need to run first, then launch Teams.
    – trlkly
    Commented May 27, 2023 at 20:46
  • @trlkly agreed, but I don't know where it's stored, and therefore am not clear on the best approach to access/modify the value. (I'd take a different approach if it were in the Registry vs. an INI file in some deeply hidden location.) Also, I often need to make the change in real time, because configuration A is discovered to be active as the meeting starts, and I need it to be configuration B ASAP. Gotta look prepared and competent! :-) BTW long-term answer might be OBS Studio. It's often worth the RAM/CPU hit.
    – Neman
    Commented Jun 23, 2023 at 17:44
  • @Neman The Teams settings are stored in this file: %AppData%\Microsoft\Teams\desktop-config.json I have tried to replace it with a different file, but it does not get picked up. Maybe Teams need to be terminated first
    – Stig Eide
    Commented Jan 10 at 6:54
  • Thank you @StigEide! Yes, I've noticed there are a number of things Teams only reads at start/initialization times. This must be one of them, and the device IDs must be the ones that are available at start time, in the priority assigned to them by Windows. I noticed there was only one reference to device ID, not the two (speaker & mic) I would have expected. Honestly, I'm not optimistic for the desired resolution here. :-(
    – Neman
    Commented Jan 11 at 16:31
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Use the web app at teams.microsoft.com.

I tried it just now and if if switch my audio output from the taskbar, teams will follow.

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    While this doesn't meet my desire to use the app (which I missed stating in the original post), I want to say thanks - this does work and might be a good fallback method.
    – Neman
    Commented Jun 23, 2023 at 17:39

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