Google Meet will automatically remove you from meetings if you're the only one there

Online communication and collaboration apps such as Microsoft Teams and Google Meet have become increasingly important in this era of hybrid work due to the pandemic. Today, Google has announced a couple of improvements that will be making their way to Meet users in the coming days.

For starters, Meet will show you a prompt to exit meetings when you're the only one present in the meeting. This will trigger when you're alone for five minutes after which you'll receive a prompt asking you to confirm your intentional presence. If you don't click "Keep waiting" within two minutes, Meet will automatically remove you from the meeting. Google says that the rationale behind this feature is to prevent the accidental sharing of audio or video if you forget to drop off from a meeting.

The second capability coming to Meet is the consolidation of the "Host controls" menu so its easier for hosts and co-hosts to manage meetings rather than jumping across several menu screens to fine-tune the end-user experience.

Auto-exit of meetings is planned for Android, iOS, and desktop devices, whereas the Host controls menu is being developed only for desktop devices. The former is available to Workspace, legacy G Suite, and personal Google accounts. On the other hand, Host controls are available to all users. No admin action is required for either of the capabilities but end-users can disable auto-exits if they want; they will be enabled by default. The capabilities will arrive within this month for Rapid Release domains but may take some more time on Scheduled Release domains.

Google Meet will automatically remove you from meetings if you're the only one there