Social features and sharing

This article covers the basics of how to cast your view in VR to others around you. If you're looking for info about casting your view and yourself, check out mobile mixed reality camera instead.

Casting allows you to share what you’re seeing in VR with others around you. Mobile mixed reality camera shares an immersive view of your real world self interacting with the VR world around you.

The Mixed Reality Capture Tool allows you to place real-world objects in VR. Using a webcam, green screen and broadcasting software you can capture footage of yourself and superimpose it in the virtual world.

Getting Started with the Mixed Reality Capture Tool

To set up the Mixed Reality Capture Tool:

Setting Up Open Broadcaster Software

To use the Mixed Reality Capture Tool with Open Broadcaster Software, or OBS:

Note: If you're noticing that there is latency between your movements and the ones being captured, you may need to adjust the Render Delay in OBS. To adjust this, right click on your video capture device and click Filters. Click Render Delay and make adjustments until the latency from your movements decreases.

To record video from Meta Quest 2 or Meta Quest:

A red dot will appear in VR to indicate that recording has started. This video capture indicator can be controlled from Settings.

To stop recording:

When you finish recording, your video will be saved under Media in your Files App.

The video capture indicator is a red dot that appears in the middle of your screen in VR to indicate that you're recording a video or casting. You can control this feature from Settings.

To turn the video capture indicator on or off:

To take a screenshot from your Meta Quest 2 headset:

A blinking red dot will appear in VR to indicate that a picture is being taken. Once the picture is taken, you can select the notification that will appear to view your photo. You can also view photos you've taken in the Media section of your Files App.

With Meta Quest and your mobile app, you can sync media between your headset and phone.

From the Files app on your headset, you can sync any media you've captured in VR to your Oculus mobile app.

To turn automatic media sync on or off:

To manually sync or unsync individual files:

To access Messenger in VR:

You can message your Facebook friends from Messenger in VR. To do this:

Similar to using Messenger on mobile, you will get a notification when one of your Facebook friends messages you. If you don't want to have Messenger notifications while you're in VR, you can turn them off in your Messenger settings.

To adjust your Messenger Settings:

Even if you use Messenger to connect with your Facebook friends from Messenger in VR, you'll still be able to access your Oculus Chats.

To access your Oculus chats:

Currently, you can't make a Messenger call or use Messenger Rooms with Messenger in VR.

If you'd like to use audio to talk to your friends on Messenger, you can create a party. To do this:

You can still use parties in the same way that you did before Messenger in VR. You can also start a party with your Messenger friends who are in VR.

To start a party with your friends on Messenger:

If you don't want to use Messenger in VR, you can log out. To do this:

You can add friends on Oculus to invite to games and parties. All of your headsets share the same friend list.

To add friends to your account using the Oculus mobile app:

To add friends to your account from your Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest, or Go:

To add friends to your account from your Oculus Rift S or Rift:

To add friends to your account using the Oculus PC app:

To add friends to your account for Gear VR:

Note: Some people choose not to have their first and last name visible in search.

Oculus parties allow you to hang out and chat with friends in VR. A party can either be public or private.

A private party is a voice over IP (VOIP) call made to people you’re already friends with, or friends of other party invitees. You can set who is allowed in your party by selecting and choosing either invite only or friends of invitees. Private parties can be launched from your friends screen, from Messenger in VR, or from within an app that supports parties.

A public party is a voice over IP (VOIP) call that can be discovered by people outside of your Oculus friends list. Public parties allow you to explore experiences or play games with other people in-VR, and can be launched from your home feed, or from within an app that supports public parties.

When you're in a party, you'll see an active call bar at the bottom of the Universal Menu toolbar:

• Connection status
  • Connecting
  • Reconnecting
  • Not connected
• Party leader's name
• Number of people in the party
• Party volume: You can adjust the volume of your party chat by selecting the and adjusting the volume slider.
• Chat options: You can switch between party chat and in-app chat (if available) by selecting
• Mic options: You can mute or unmute your mic by selecting
• Leave party: You can leave the party you're in by selecting

You can control who can see or join your party by adjusting the party’s access settings. By default, when you start a party, your Oculus friends can see and join your party, and party members can invite others using the party link.

To change your party's access settings:

If you’re traveling together with your party, everyone will need to have the app downloaded to their headset.

• If a friend in your party doesn’t have the app, they will be taken to the Oculus store page to download it.
• If you are hosting a public party, people you aren’t already friends with won’t be able to join a party for an app they don’t already own.

If you’re launching an app and having your party meet you at a joinable destination, everyone who has the app will be able to join you.

• If a friend in your party doesn’t have the app, they can either download the app and meet the party in the joinable location, or stay on the call with the other party members without using the app.
• If you are hosting a public party, people you aren’t already friends with won’t be able to join a public party for an app they don’t already own.

There are two ways to use apps with the people in your party.

Apps that let you travel together with your party members will appear in your home feed.

To travel together with your party:

Parties that start from your home feed will default to public, but can be changed using the privacy settings in the party panel. Learn more about party privacy settings.

If you don’t have all your party members ready to go ahead of time you can invite others to meet you at a joinable destination within an app. A joinable destination is like a VR lobby or waiting room where you can hang out until the rest of your party joins you.

To invite your party members to travel to a joinable destination:

Keep in mind, you can leave the joinable destination before your entire party arrives, however if someone from your party wants to join you after you’ve left, you’ll need to return to the joinable destination to meet your party member.

The maximum number of people in a party depends on the app or experience. For example, if a game you want to play has a cap of 4, then your party can have up to 4 people.

If the app or experience does not have a limit, you can have up to 8 people in your party for Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest.

You can review the chart below to see party settings and who can adjust them.

To mute your microphone on Meta Quest 2:

We want to create a safe and respectful VR environment for everyone in our community. If someone in your party is making you feel uncomfortable, you can select next to their profile picture and choose from the following options:

Block User

Blocking a member of your party will hide your information (profile, name etc) and will prevent the user from seeing any future public parties that you create in their explore feed. It will not remove the user from the current party.

Keep in mind, someone who you’ve blocked can join a public party if another party member invites them back, or if they’re already friends with another party member and join through that person’s profile card.

To avoid having a blocked user rejoin your current party, in addition to blocking them, select Remove User to remove them from your current party.

Report User

Reporting a member of your party will allow you to create a report explaining what happened in your Public Party. The report will be sent to our operations team for review.

When you submit your report you’ll get an email acknowledging that the report has been received. If the operations team determines that the actions detailed in your report violated the Community Standards or Conduct in VR Policy, you’ll get another email to let you know that your report has been actioned on.

After you send your report, you can also choose to block the party member, and/or remove them from the current party.

Remove User (public party only)

Removing a member of your party will remove the person from the current public party. Removed party members will not be able to return to the same party.

By enabling phone notifications, you can see app notifications from your phone while you’re in VR. Before you begin set-up, make sure the Oculus mobile app is installed on your phone. You can download this from the App Store.

To set up notifications on your phone:

Note: This feature only works for the apps you’ve allowed to show notification previews on your phone’s lock screen. You won’t see notifications for any apps where you’ve turned off lock screen notifications, notification previews or all notifications.

To edit settings on your phone:

To edit settings in-VR:

From here, you can see when and what notifications you’ll receive when you’re in VR.

To view your phone notifications feed:

If you have multiple users on your VR device, your phone notifications will not be visible to any other account holders signed into the headset.

If you share your headset with another person using your account, you can keep them from seeing your phone notifications by disabling the phone notifications feature on your Oculus app or from your headset settings.

To disable phone notifications from your phone:

To disable phone notifications in-VR:

To display your phone notifications in VR, your headset receives some information regarding the notifications. Learn how Meta collects and uses data for phone notifications.

When you set up phone notifications, you can see app notifications from your phone while you’re in VR.

If you are enabling phone notifications for the first time and you are unable to see your notifications in VR:

If phone notifications previously worked for you, but you are no longer seeing them after resetting or powering off your headset:

If you do not see this during your first attempt, try the above steps again. If these troubleshooting steps do not work, please contact Customer Support.

When you set up phone notifications, you can see app notifications from your phone while you’re in VR. To display your phone notifications in VR, your headset receives some information regarding the notifications, including:

• The content and title of the notifications.
• The date and time of the notifications.
• The name and icon of the app that is sending the notification.
• The name of the apps with enabled phone notifications.
• Your Oculus settings for where you want app notifications to appear in VR.

This information is temporarily stored on your headset so you can view the notifications in your notifications feed. The information is automatically deleted once you turn off or restart your headset at the end of a session.

When this feature is in use, your headset also collects certain data from your phone about your mobile apps and Oculus settings, for example: The name of the apps with enabled phone notifications. Your Oculus settings for where you want app notifications to appear in VR.

This information is used to understand your preferences for where and when you want to see phone notifications in VR. This data is stored directly on your headset and is deleted when your device is factory reset.

In order to improve the phone notifications feature, we collect certain data about your interactions with this feature consistent with our Privacy Policy. For example, we collect how many users have turned on the phone notifications feature and where users prefer to see their phone notifications in VR.