Diagnose and Cancel Audio Echo in Zoom Meetings

Have you ever heard an echo when you’re in a Zoom meeting? Anytime anyone speaks, there is an echo? We’re going to look at how we can figure out where that echo is coming from and what we can do about that echo in this video. We have a setting in the Zoom app where we can tell it to reduce or eliminate that echo. But the first thing we need to do is figure out who is causing that echo. Let’s see how we do this. Let’s go to my Mac.

Now, as I mentioned in the introduction, in some cases, when we’re on a Zoom call, we’ll hear an echo anytime anyone speaks. In most cases, this is caused by one person. So the first thing we need to do is figure out who is causing that echo. How do we do that? Well, we just ask people to mute their microphones. As soon as someone mutes their microphone and the echo goes away, we may know that the person is causing the echo. You could ask everyone else to unmute their microphones, and if there is no echo, we know it is that one participant. Maybe the participant is you. When you mute your microphone, everyone else no longer here is an echo.

Now whoever it is, it could be you, it could be someone else; what they need to do is follow these steps. They need to go to their Zoom preferences. There is a setting in Zoom to get rid of the echo that we need to turn on. So I go up to Zoom in the menu bar and then go to Preferences. In most cases, this will be on a PC, a Mac, or PC, and in a lot of cases, it’s going to be caused by an external microphone. So now we go down to Preferences here, it opens up our Settings, and now what we need to do is we need to go to Audio.

Under Audio, there is a section called Music and Professional Audio. What we need to do is we need to turn the option below this on. You’re going to see we have an option here that says ‘show in meeting option to enable original sound from microphone.’ What we need to do is we need to turn this on. When we turn this on, there is going to be an option for Echo Cancellation. So this is hidden by default. Once they turn that on, in most cases, the echo will go away. They can unmute their microphone, and the echo will go away.

So that’s how we can get rid of the echo that we may hear in a Zoom call. What we need to do is we need to find out which participant is causing the echo. To do that, you just ask people to mute their microphone. As soon as someone mutes their microphone and the echo goes away, then you may know it may be that person. From there, what that person may need to do is go into their Zoom preferences, go to Audio, and then under Music and Professional Audio, make sure that ‘show in meeting’ option is selected, and the Echo Cancellation is selected. And again, in most cases, this is caused by an external microphone. So in a lot of cases, the person also has an external microphone.

So that’s how you can get rid of that echo that you may hear when you’re in a Zoom meeting.