Kolab has two types of settings: personal settings that affect your own experience, and space settings that facilitators control for everyone in the session.
Personal Settings
Access your personal settings from the More options menu (⋮) in the bottom control bar, then click Settings.
Audio
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Microphone | Choose which microphone to use |
| Speaker | Choose which speaker or headphones to use |
| Noise Cancellation | Toggle Krisp AI noise removal on or off |
Video
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Camera | Choose which camera to use |
| Visual Effects | Open the visual effects panel for backgrounds and blur |
| Data Saver | Stop receiving other participants' camera video—see their initial instead, to ease a slow connection |
Turning on Data Saver also turns off your own camera once, as a bandwidth courtesy—Kolab lets you know this happened, and you can turn your camera back on anytime. It only changes what you see; everyone else keeps their cameras exactly as they were. This is a personal, per-browser setting, and you'll also find it in the video control bar's options menu.
See Visual Effects & Audio Quality for details on backgrounds and noise cancellation.
Canvas
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Miro-style controls | Hosts and facilitators only, under Board navigation. Adds a Select / Hand button (V / H) to the board toolbar. In Select, drag empty space to select; hold Space or right-drag to move the board |
| Show Alignment Lines | Display visual guides when moving elements near other elements |
| Auto-Zoom to Audio Zones | Automatically center the view when you enter an audio zone |
Miro-style controls is off by default and only affects you—participants always drag to move the board and Shift + drag to select. Turning it on starts you in Select, and your choice is remembered in this browser. See Using the Canvas.
Touchpad & Scrolling
Fine-tune how scrolling and gestures work on the canvas:
| Setting | What it does |
|---|---|
| Scroll Sensitivity | Adjust how fast the board moves when you scroll, from 50% to 200%. At 100% it moves exactly with your fingers. |
| Two-finger scroll | Choose what scrolling does. Auto (the default) moves the board when you scroll with two fingers on a trackpad, and zooms when you use a mouse wheel. Pan always moves the board. Zoom always zooms, the way Kolab worked before October 2026. |
| Invert pan direction | Move the board against your fingers instead of with them. Off by default; scrolling already follows your computer's scroll-direction setting. |
| Pinch to Zoom | Zoom the board by pinching on a trackpad or touchscreen |
Pinching, or holding Ctrl (Cmd on Mac) while you scroll, always zooms, whatever you pick for Two-finger scroll.
Tip: Click Reset to Defaults to restore all scroll and gesture settings to their original values.
Space Settings (Facilitator)
Facilitators can control settings that affect everyone in the space. Access these from the space settings menu in the mode control bar.
Participant Experience
| Setting | What it does | Available in |
|---|---|---|
| Move participants | Allow facilitators to move participant avatars on the canvas | Interactive mode only |
| Show user cursors | Toggle whether participants see each other's cursors | All modes |
| Auto-zoom | Automatically zoom participants to follow the facilitator's view | Interactive mode only |
| Ask everyone for a photo | Opens a photo round: everyone gets a QR code to send a photo from their phone | All modes (no QR codes in Conference mode) |
Emoji Style
The Emojis setting chooses which reactions participants can send, for the whole space:
| Option | What it includes |
|---|---|
| Default | Follows each agenda section's Participant reactions setting (Focused if a section has none) |
| Focused (8) | 8 quick emojis: ❤️ 👍 🎉 👏 😂 😮 😢 🤔 |
| Extended | The full emoji picker |
| Off | No reactions |
Any option other than Default overrides every section's setting. To set reactions per section instead, open a section's Section options menu (⋮) in the Agenda sidebar and pick under Participant reactions.
Default View
Set what participants see when they first join:
- Navigate your canvas to the desired position and zoom level
- Open space settings
- Click Set as default view
This saves the current canvas position and zoom as the starting point for new participants.
Troubleshooting
"Setting won't save"
- Check you have permission — some settings are facilitator-only
- Verify your internet connection
- Try refreshing and re-applying
"Can't find a setting"
- Personal settings (audio, video, canvas, scrolling) are in the More options menu (⋮) → Settings
- Space settings (cursors, auto-zoom, emojis) are in the space settings menu in the mode control bar
- Some settings only appear in certain space modes (e.g., "Move participants" only in Interactive mode)
Related Guides
- Space Modes - Display modes
- Visual Effects - Background and audio effects
- Audio Zones Explained - Zone configuration
- System Check - Verify your setup