How To Use Google Meet

Google recently launched Meet, its rival to video conferencing app, Zoom. This was after the demand for the cloud meeting app shot through the roof due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Microsoft also revamped Teams and Facebook enabled messenger for meetings as well as increasing the number of participants in a WhatsApp group call.

Zoom initially faced a lot of backlash due to security lapses during meetings prompting users to opt for other services. Meet has been around for a few weeks now since Gmail rebranded its Hangout feature and made it available to all its users for free. The beauty of Meet is that it is placed directly on your browser. You need not download the app or pop out to an external site to launch or join meetings. An added advantage is that you can launch Meet on any browser, be it Chrome, Safari, Mozilla or Edge.

This article will show you how to launch or join Meet

1. Open your preferred browser and go to Gmail
2. Log in and click on “Meet” at the bottom left corner of your screen.
3. Click on “Start a meeting.”
4. The first time you are using Google Meet, your computer will ask for your permission to access your camera and microphone.
5. If you are the one initiating a meeting, you will be taken to a “Meeting ready” screen that contains the meeting URL, dial-in number as well as a PIN to be shared with participants.
6. Select “Join now” to commence the meeting, or “Present” if you want to make a presentation. If you click on “Present’, the contents of your screen will be visible to the other attendants. You can choose to present after the meeting has started.
7. Once in, up to 100 invited participants can jump into your meeting and join in the conversation through video, audio, and chat.

Read: Google Rolls Out Video Conferencing Feature on Gmail as They Take on Zoom

How to join a session on Google Meet

1. Open your preferred browser and log in to your Gmail account.
2. Click on “Meet” in the bottom left corner of your screen.
3. Click on “Join a meeting”
4. Enter the code sent by the meeting initiator. This code will be the string of letters and dashes at the end of the meeting URL. (ex: tld-gcsk-spl)
5. If this is your first time using Meet, your computer will prompt that you grant it permission to access the device’s microphone and camera.
6. You have successfully joined a meeting in progress

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