Jitsi Meet is our recommended tool for web-based video conferencing with 20 or less participants.
All participants can connect to the conference using any modern web browser
Using older browsers to connect can cause problems for all users. See limitations.
¶ Download and Installation
Go to https://meet.mayfirst.org and create a meeting, or click on the meeting link sent to you by the meeting organizer.
Alternatively, you can download the standalone Jitsi Meet application.
Download the Jitsi app:
Install "Jitsi Meet", not "Jitsi". They're not the same.
After opening Jitsi Meet, enter an address for your meeting that starts with: https://meet.mayfirst.org/ and ends with a unique address that only has letters and numbers, for example: https://meet.mayfirst.org/mymeeting
All participants will use this address to join your meeting.
Enter your name and click Join Meeting.
The bottom of the screen contains a control bar.
From left to right:
- Mute/unmute (click arrow for audio configuration)
- Start/stop camera (click arrow for video configuration)
- Screen sharing
- Open/close chat
- Raise/lower your hand (click arrow for emoji reactions)
- Show/hide participant pane
- Toggle View (tile or speaker)
- More actions
- Leave the meeting
Click More Actions and select Performance Settings.
If you have a live, human interpreter and you would like your meeting to be interpreted between two different languages, you can use our special Interpretation-enabled version of Jitsi Meet, by adding an "i" to the beginning of the address:
https://i.meet.mayfirst.org/
- The Interpreter must change their name in the Jitsi interface to include the word "interpret" in it - so they can be identified as the interpreter
- A language slider will appear at the top of the screen - allowing you to hear either the interpreter or the live speakers proportionally.
- Everyone participating in the meeting should connect to https://i.meet.mayfirst.org/ using their browser and adjust the interpretation slider as needed, otherwise they will hear both voices simultaneously.
Our interpretation enhanced version of Jitsi Meet does not work with the Jitsi Meet apps - either the desktop apps or the mobile apps. Everyone will need to participate in a web browser on their desktop or laptop computer.
- Jitsi meet works best with 20 or fewer participants, but seems to work with as many as 50 or 60 participants.
- If just one participant is using an unsupported browser (like an older version of Firefox or Internet Edge/Explorer or Safari) it can make the entire meeting fail.
- To conserve bandwidth, only the last 8 participants who have spoken will have their video streams sent to everyone else.
- We still have reports of some computers, particularly older ones, struggling to keep up with a meeting.
- If you are using video for all participants, each participant needs a high bandwidth connection. Alternatively, instruct participants to turn off their video when they are not speaking.
- There is no option dial into a jitsi meeting using a regular phone call on the May First servers.
- The option to 'Start recording' to record video and audio of jitsi meet calls to a local file will appear under the 'More actions' menu when using the Chrome browser but is not available in the Firefox browser.
- There are no break out rooms - however, you can instruct users to go to different rooms and then return to the main room - it's manual, not automatic.