You probably already tried to add a new background with a .mp4 or .gif extension, but soon realized that Microsoft Teams will only allow you to select from .jpg, .jpeg, .png, and .bmp files.
I thought to myself: what if I uploaded a .mp4 or .gif to wherever Microsoft Teams stores those custom uploaded backgrounds?
A quick search lead me to ~/Library/Application Support/Microsoft/Teams/Backgrounds. I copied an animated.gif and an animated_thumb.jpg to match, and while I could select the thumbnail, the background was not applied.
My last hope was to rename animated.gif to animated.jpg, and low and behold, after selecting the thumbnail, the GIF actually played in the background.
So if you have a MP4, just convert it to a GIF, because MP4s won’t work.
Just to complete the answer – the path to the background-images on a Windows-System:
%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\UploadsThanks for taking the time to add that, Sven!
I am always getting a message that the format of the file is not right. What converter tool did you use for the mp4 to gif conversion?
Hi Ronald, I’ve only used pre-made GIFs so far, so I don’t have a recommendation on which program might be best to convert a MP4 to GIF.
Thank you for the little guide how to set animated backgrounds on Teams! I searched in like forever and you solved it 🙂
I used this website to convert MP4 to animated GIF: https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif
And then I made a copy of the animated GIF and renamed the file to include the words “_thumb” and copy the 2 GIF files to the UPLOAD folder. And I can use the animated background in Microsoft Teams.
Thanks!