Google Meet tutorial: Complete guide to hosting and joining meetings
Google Meet is Google’s video conferencing service. It is Google Hangouts rebranded with quite a few improvements. Google Meet remains a web app i.e., there are no official desktop clients for the service. It’s also free and one of the most commonly used services for quick, ad-hoc or scheduled meetings.
Google Meet tutorial
Google Meet is easy to use as far as hosting or joining a meeting is concerned. It offers advanced features such as presenting, screen recording, screen sharing, and basic settings for managing audio and video devices. The core of the service is easy to use.
Host a meeting
Anyone can host a Google Meet meeting. As a meeting host, you have control over who can join a meeting, who can speak, and who can be expelled from a meeting.
You do not need a Google account to host a Google Meet meeting and you do not need to subscribe to one of the paid plans either. It is best to use Google Meet in Google Chrome.
- Open a new tab in Google Chrome.
- Visit Google Meet.
- To start a new meeting right away, click New Meeting.
- Select Start an instant meeting.
- When prompted, allow Google Meet to use the mic, and webcam via the Google Chrome notification.
- The meeting will start.
- Copy the meeting information to your clipboard and share it with whoever you want to invite to the meeting.
- When someone joins the meeting, you will see a prompt asking if you want to allow or deny entry the person.
Schedule a meeting
Scheduling a meeting is similar to hosting an instant meeting. The only difference is that you select the ‘Create a meeting for later’ option instead of the ‘Start an instant meeting’ option. You will get a link to the meeting and you can start it any time you want.
The meeting link generated has no time or date attached to it. It’s a link that you can use whenever you like. You can use it right away or you can use it a month later.
Join a meeting
Joining a meeting is far easier than hosting one. You don’t need to sign in with a Google Account and it is best to use Chrome.
- Open a new tab in Chrome.
- Paste the link to a meeting in the URL bar and tap Enter.
- Allow Chrome and Google Meet access to your mic and webcam.
- Click Ask to join.
- Wait for the meeting host to allow you into the meeting.
Note: you cannot join a Google Meet meeting that hasn’t started. Let the meeting host know you’re waiting to be let into the meeting if you do not get a response. If you try to join a meeting before it has started, you will be stuck on the ‘Asking to join’ screen until the request times out.
Manage audio and video
You can manage/change audio and video devices during a meeting any time.
- Click the more options (three dots) button.
- Select Settings.
- Select the Audio or Video tab to manage devices.
Conclusion
Google Meet has lots of other features that you can explore. We’ve written about some of the more commonly used ones. You should now know how to start or join a meeting in Google Meet.
