How to Mute Players in CS2

Mute one player mid-match

1. Hold Tab to bring up the scoreboard.
2. Hold your right mouse button to unlock a cursor. This is configurable — the setting is cl_scoreboard_mouse_enable_binding, and it defaults to +attack2, which is right mouse on a default keymap.
3. Click the player's row. Their card opens with a row of controls: Profile, Volume, Report, Commend.
4. Click the Volume control to mute them. Valve's tooltip on it is "Drag or click to change voice volume" — so a click toggles mute, and dragging turns them down instead of off.

A muted player gets a muted icon on their scoreboard avatar. By default CS2 also hides their name and avatar once you mute them, via cl_sanitize_muted_players— so if someone's name suddenly goes neutral, that is why, not a bug.

If the control shows "Communication restricted" and will not budge, that player is serving a Valve communication ban. They are already silenced for everyone and you cannot un-mute them.

The two buttons at the top of the scoreboard

These are the ones people misread, and it is worth being precise because one of them does something you probably did not intend.

• "Disable all voice comms". This toggles voice_modenable — the same convar behind the Voice/Microphone Mode audio setting, whose off position is literally labelled Disabled. It switches the voice system off, not other people's voices. Expect your own microphone to stop working while it is on. This is the single most common reason for "the mute all button is broken" posts.
• "Block names and avatars of strangers". A cosmetic-abuse toggle rather than a mute. It sets cl_sanitize_player_names on and cl_hide_avatar_images to the friends-only position in one click, which neutralises offensive names, avatars and name-tagged items from people you do not know. Voice and chat are untouched.

If what you actually want is "silence everyone else, keep my mic", drag Other Player Voice Volume to zero in the audio settings, or use Mute All But Friends below.

Settings → Game → Communication

These persist across matches and sessions, which makes them the ones worth setting up once. The console names are what each option writes.

Two of those are described in-game as blocking communication rather than voice: Mute Enemy Team blocks all communication from the other side, and Mute All But Friends is explained as blocking communication from everyone who is not a friend or in your party. That is the difference from the scoreboard control, which is presented purely as a voice volume.

Text Filtering is not a CS2 setting at all — the button hands you off to Steam's Community Content Preferences, because Valve keeps profanity filtering at the account level. You can set all of these from the console too; each one is in our CS2 command database.

The audio side

Under Settings → Audio → Voice:

• Other Player Voice Volume (snd_voipvolume) — a slider for incoming voice from everybody. Zero is the closest thing CS2 has to a true "mute everyone else and keep talking" switch.
• Voice/Microphone Mode — Disabled, Push to Talk, or Open Mic. This is your transmission, not theirs.

Worth separating in your head: the volume slider is about what you hear, the mode is about what you send. Our CS2 settings guide covers the rest of the audio tab.

Blocking someone on Steam

Steam-level blocking is a different tool for a different problem. Open the player's Steam profile — the Profile button on their scoreboard card is the quickest route mid-match — then use More → Block all communication.

What that stops is Steam contact: chat messages, friend invites and profile comments. What it does not do is remove them from your match, cancel the round, or change how matchmaking pairs you. Treat it as the fix for someone following you off the server, not as an in-game mute.

What muting does not stop

• It does not remove them from the game. That is a separate mechanic — see how to vote kick in CS2, and note that kicking a griefer needs your team's agreement, not just yours.
• It does not report them. Report is its own button on the same player card. Muting is invisible to Valve; only reports feed the penalty system and Trust Factor. Reporting for abuse does mute them for you as a side effect — that behaviour is on by default in the client — but it does not work the other way round.
• It does not stop them hearing you. Mute is one-directional. If you want out of the conversation entirely, you also have to stop transmitting.
• It does not silence pings. Map pings are a separate system with their own setting, so a player spamming pings keeps doing it through a voice mute. Set Player Pings to Display Without Sound or Disabled.
• It does not touch game audio. Radio calls, MVP music and every other in-game sound are unaffected by muting a player.

A sensible default setup

If you mostly queue solo and just want less noise without going deaf to your own team: set Mute Enemy Team to Yes, leave Mute All But Friends off so teammates can still call, turn on the scoreboard's block-strangers toggle if offensive names bother you, and mute individuals from the scoreboard as they earn it. That keeps callouts flowing, which matters more than most new players expect — the beginner's guide has more on why team comms are worth tolerating.