How to keep your Microsoft Teams status green

Why Teams marks you "Away," and how to stay Available.

You step away for five minutes, come back, and Microsoft Teams has quietly flipped your status from a green "Available" to a yellow "Away." It's a small thing, but it can misrepresent how present you actually are. Here's exactly why it happens and the honest ways to keep your dot green.

Why Teams changes your status to "Away"

Teams sets your presence automatically based on two signals:

Notice that both are really about input activity. Teams isn't judging your productivity — it's just guessing presence from whether the machine has been touched recently.

Option 1: Set your status manually (the built-in way)

The simplest fix requires no tools at all:

The catch: a manually-set status can still be overridden when your computer actually locks or sleeps, and it resets after the duration you chose. It helps, but it isn't bulletproof.

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Option 2: Stop the computer from going idle

Because Teams keys off input activity, keeping the machine "active" keeps you green. Two sub-approaches:

Adjust Windows power & lock settings

Go to Settings → System → Power & battery and increase the screen and sleep timeouts. In Settings → Accounts → Sign-in options, set "If you've been away, when should Windows require you to sign in again?" to a longer window, and check your screen-saver lock setting. This prevents the lock/sleep trigger — though it won't stop the five-minute idle switch on its own.

Use a mouse jiggler

To defeat the idle trigger, a jiggler periodically generates a tiny bit of input so the idle timer never crosses Teams' threshold. Our free browser tool keeps your screen awake, and the free Windows download generates gentle, randomized mouse movement that keeps Teams (and Slack, and similar apps) showing you as Available. Because the movement is small and randomized, it won't fling your cursor around while you work.

Tip: If your only goal is to stop the screen sleeping while you read or watch something, the in-browser keep-awake button on our homepage is the fastest option — no download required.

Option 3: Hardware, if software is blocked

On tightly-managed work laptops you may not be able to install anything. In that case a small USB hardware jiggler does the same job without any software on the PC. It plugs in like a normal mouse and keeps the machine active.

A quick word of caution

Keeping your status green has plenty of legitimate reasons — you're reading a long document, on a call from your phone, or thinking through a problem away from the keyboard. Just make sure you're acting within your employer's policies. These tools manage presence; they're not a substitute for doing the work.

Summary