Adjustments to Reduce Teams’ impact on Computer Resources

For all of the benefits Microsoft Teams offers, it sure can tax computer resources. For some, this can cause issues or performance degradation of Teams or other applications in use. We've compiled some tips and adjustments you can make to help ease this burden on your resources.

January 19, 2021
Valiant Technology
3 min

Teams is a powerful productivity tool with a multitude of useful features. However, with great power comes great resource demands on your computer. Many users report that Teams shows a spike in memory use, makes other programs sluggish, or makes your computer fan whirr loud enough that you think its audibly asking for help. If you have experienced any issues while using Teams, it may be because your computer is working extra hard to give you the best quality. Alternatively, there are some steps that you can take to reduce the impact on your computer resources. You can try one or all of these. However, be sure to balance the performance of your computer with the performance of Teams as best fits your work.

Fewer apps and tabs

Let’s start with just lessening the functions your computer is running simultaneously. All applications use computer resources. Some just use more than others. If you are using more than one resource intensive app at a time, you will be more likely to see performance degradation. If possible, close out of any apps that you may not need to be using while Teams is open and vice versa.

This goes for browser tabs as well. If you have a lot of Chrome or Edge tabs open, close what you can. Each tab adds to the amount of memory used by your browser. This is a good practice in general, regardless of Teams’ effect on your computer performance.

Change Teams Settings

There are a few features within Teams that you can disable from the settings menu. Click your profile icon in the upper right corner. Then select settings indicated by the gear icon.

Starting in the general section, about midway down you will see disable GPU hardware acceleration. Doing so will sacrifice some visual quality, but it can help when your computer is overtaxed. Click for the checkmark to appear, and then restart the Teams application to apply. You can always uncheck this box in the future if you wish to turn this feature back on.

Next, go to the privacy section listed just below general. Click to toggle off read receipts. Doing so can especially help for heavy chat users. This will prevent the acknowledgement check mark that allows other users to see if you have seen their message. You will also not be able to see their read status for messages you sent.

Adjust Windows performance settings

On your PC you can adjust the Windows video effects settings to prioritize speed over visuals. To start, go to your search bar and type performance. This should bring up the option to adjust the appearance and performance of Windows.

While you have the option to uncheck any boxes you see fit, the easiest adjustment is to select adjust for best performance. Don’t forget to click apply for this to take effect.

As with many of the other options above, this may not look as nice as the optimized choice. However, it will prioritize functionality over visuals which can help reduce the resource demands of apps such as Teams meetings.

You will have to determine for yourself which steps to take and create a balance for your needs. Teams optimized looks great and works great, but it does need resources to do so. Using some or all of the steps above can help you continue to reap the benefits of Teams while reducing the toll on your computer resources.