UPDATE: Microsoft Teams Custom Background Effects!

Custom backgrounds are now available in Microsoft Teams. But what if you want to add your own custom background? We've got you covered in this post!

Microsoft Teams Background Effects… Customized!

UPDATE: Since writing this post, Microsoft rolled out the Background Effects feature to Teams. Click here to learn more.


Video calls have become the new normal in our day-to-day workflow. Video is an extremely useful tool to help you and your audience stay engaged in the conversation. With that, why not have some fun by adding your own custom background in Teams!

Did you know you can now add a custom background on a video call in Microsoft Teams? In addition to the already great blur feature, Microsoft has added several predefined background images you can choose from. The only downside to this great new feature, there is currently no UI option to add a your own custom background (coming in May). We couldn’t help ourselves, so we found a little work around to add your own custom photos in the interim.

How to:

Navigate to the following system path and upload your photos.

Windows  %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\Uploads
Mac  /users/<username>/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/Backgrounds/Uploads

We did come across one caveat. The folder will not exist until you add a default background at least once prior.

What about governance?

In keeping with good governance and policy, Microsoft will soon be introducing the background effects policy for tenant administrators. This will enable tenant administrators to assign user-level policy to control how users engage with background effects in Teams meetings. The options will include: no filters; background blur only; use background blur and default provided images; and all, which includes the ability for users to upload their own custom images. This is currently in development with a release planned for sometime in May 2020.

Have fun!

So far we’ve had our team members take calls from the summit of Everest, Family Guy living room, and even from the set of The Office! We hope adding your own Teams custom background images brings you and your team as much fun as it did to ours (see post image).


If you’d like to learn more about how we’re helping organizations across the globe effectively use Microsoft Teams, visit our Microsoft Teams Consulting page or contact us today.