How to fix Google Meet grid view not working
Google Meet is one of the most flexible online web conferencing tools you can use for free. It is easy to set up, easy to join a meeting, and a meeting can last an hour with up to 100 participants.
In many ways, Google Meet beats out the competition simply because its meetings can be longer and because it is easy to use.
Fix Google Meet grid view is not working
A single Google Meet meeting can have anywhere between 3-100 participants for free users. You can use it for small seminars and trainings, as well as moderately sized town-hall style meetings.
Google Meet has a grid view that allows users to see up to 49 people all at once in a grid layout. The layout will feature user’s profile pictures if the camera is off, and their camera feed if it is on.
If you’re in a Google Meet meeting with a large number of participants, but the grid view isn’t appearing, here’s what you can do to fix it.
1. Enable grid view
Grid view should ideally kick in when you have a large number of participants but, by default, Google Meet decides for you when to show a grid, and when not to. It’s possible it doesn’t think you need the grid view. You can easily force Google Meet to use grid view in this case.
In a Google Meet meeting;
- Click the more options button (three dots) on the bottom controls bar.
- Select Change layout from the menu.
- Select the Tiled layout.
- The grid view will be enabled.
2. Unpin a participant
Google Meet allows users to pin any participant. This will make it so that their thumbnail/camera feed is always visible to you. It may interfere with the grid view if the number of participants doesn’t add up to a number that will make for a reasonably sized grid.
In a Google Meet meeting;
- Open the participants list by clicking the icon on the bottom.
- Select the more options button (three dots) next to the member that you’ve pinned.
- Select the unpin option from the menu.
3. Use a Chrome extension
If all else fails, and you’re still unable to get the grid view in Google Meet, you can force it by using the Chrome browser and installing the Google Meet Grid View extension.
- Quit/leave the Google Meet meeting.
- Open Chrome and install the Google Meet Grid View extension from the Chrome Web Store.
- Join the Google Meet meeting again.
- Use the extension’s toggle to enable grid view.
Conclusion
The grid view is great for large meetings but you can also try using the Sidebar view to view all meeting participants. It’s an especially good option if you need to pin one or two participants which may interfere with the grid view.
