Adding a background to Teams

1. One command (fastest)

Every background has an Add to Teams box with a one-line command. On Windows, paste it into PowerShell. On a Mac, paste it into Terminal. It downloads the 1920×1080 image and the small preview Teams expects into Teams’ own background folder for your user account. It doesn’t need admin rights and doesn’t touch anything else. Category pages have the same box to add every background in that category at once.

Running a command you copied from a website should make you pause, so each box has a Read the script first link. The script only contains this site’s address and the image ids. Running it again replaces the files rather than adding duplicates.

Animated backgrounds are GIFs. The command installs them with a .png extension, which is how Teams plays an animated background. To make your own, see making an animated background. Works with the new Teams app (2023 onwards) and with classic Teams. If the background doesn’t show up straight away, quit and reopen Teams. On a Mac, macOS may ask whether Terminal can access data from other apps. Allow it, because the folder belongs to Teams.

2. Download and add it yourself

1. Click Download on a background. You get a 1920×1080 JPEG, or the GIF itself for an animated one. Rename a GIF so it ends in .png, or Teams won’t accept it.
2. Backgrounds aren’t in Teams’ settings. Open the screen you see before joining a meeting (Calendar → Meet now works for trying one out), turn your camera on, and open the background effects next to the camera and mic switches. In a meeting that’s already started, they’re under More (⋯), or the arrow next to the camera button.
3. Choose Add new and pick the file you downloaded.

This also works in Teams on the web, which the command can’t reach.

3. For the whole organisation

With a Teams Premium licence, an admin can upload backgrounds in the Teams admin centre (Meetings → Customization policies) so they appear for everyone automatically. The downloads here are already the right size for that.

Why not a single click?

A web page isn’t allowed to write into another app’s folders. Teams doesn’t offer a deep link (msteams:) or a Microsoft Graph endpoint for personal backgrounds. A true one-click button would need a small helper app installed on each computer to register its own link type. The command above does the same job without installing anything.