Google Meet can now ‘hide tiles without video’

Abner Li | May 2 2024 - 3:52 pm PT

Google Meet is rolling out a nice option to hide contact tiles that lack video so your grid isn’t inundated with profile pictures or letters.

“…users can change their layouts to avoid cluttering the screen if they are interested to only see the participants with their videos on.”

When a person that has video turned off speaks, their tile will appear on screen.

To enable, go to Settings > Change layout. The new “Hide tiles without video” toggle appears below the options for Auto, Tiles, Spotlight, and Sidebar, as well as the Tile density slider.

Whatever setting you pick only applies to your screen and “does not impact what other participants see or set for their layouts during the meeting.” It’s great if you’re projecting your screen on a larger display (for a meeting).

This feature is rolling out starting today “to all Google Workspace customers and users with personal Google Accounts.”

Meanwhile, Google Meet is expanding its ultra-low latency live streaming option that provides “virtually lag-free streaming experience, significantly increased speaker video resolution, improved automatic camera cuts that focus on the most relevant speakers and content, and more.”

Previously, only the first 10,000 people in a 100,000-viewer stream got this experience. That’s now been boosted to the first 25,000, with everyone else on standard live streaming. In terms of availability:

Live streaming is available for Google Workspace:
- Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus
- Enterprise Essentials Plus
- Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade

Live streamed meetings can be viewed by Google Workspace:
- Business Starter, Standard, and Plus
- Enterprise Starter, Standard, and Plus
- Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade
- Essentials Starter and Essentials users.