Enabling meeting breakout rooms

Tags Zoom

Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom Meeting in up to 100 separate sessions. The meeting host can choose to split the participants of the meeting into these separate sessions automatically or manually, or they can allow participants to select and enter breakout sessions as they please. The host can switch between sessions at any time.

Webinars can also use breakout rooms. Learn how to enable webinar breakout rooms. 

This article covers:

Prerequisites for enabling meeting breakout rooms

  • Account owner or admin privileges

Note: Before using breakout rooms, see the limitations of breakout rooms.

How to enable meeting breakout rooms and breakout room options

Account

To enable the breakout room feature for all members of your organization:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an administrator with the privilege to edit account settings.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Account Management then Account Settings.
  3. Click the Meeting tab.
  4. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Breakout room toggle to enable it.
  5. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable to verify the change.
  6. (Optional) Select the check boxes for the following breakout room options, then click Save:
    • Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling
    • Allow host to broadcast message to participants: This allows the host to broadcast a text-based message to all participants in breakout rooms. 
    • Allow host to broadcast voice to breakout rooms: This allows the host to broadcast their microphone audio to all participants in breakout rooms. This feature requires 5.12.0 or higher.
    • Allow host to create, rename, and delete breakout rooms when rooms are open. 
      Note: This option must be enabled by Zoom before it is available and requires 5.9.3 or higher.
    • Allow host to view activity statuses of participants in breakout rooms (for example: share screen, raise hand reaction). This allows hosts and co-hosts to quickly view participants' audio and video status, if they are sharing their screen, and if they are using the raise hand reaction. This feature requires hosts and participants to have client version 5.10.3 or higher for activity statuses to appear, and does not apply to participants joining on certain devices such as phone, H.323, and SIP. 
  7. (Optional) To prevent all users in your account from changing this setting, click the lock  icon, and then click Lock to confirm the setting.

Group

To enable the breakout room feature for all members of a specific group:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal as an administrator with the privilege to edit groups.
  2. In the navigation menu, click User Management then Groups.
  3. Click the applicable group name from the list.
  4. Click the Meeting tab.
  5. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Breakout room toggle to enable it.
  6. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable to verify the change.
    Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at the account level, and needs to be changed at that level.
  7. (Optional) Select the check boxes for the following breakout room options, then click Save:
    • Allow meeting hosts to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms
    • Allow host to broadcast message to participants: This allows the host to broadcast a text-based message to all participants in breakout rooms. 
    • Allow host to broadcast voice to breakout rooms: This allows the host to broadcast their microphone audio to all participants in breakout rooms. This feature requires 5.12.0 or higher.
    • Allow hosts to create, rename, and delete breakout rooms when rooms are open. 
      Note: This option must be enabled by Zoom before it is available and requires 5.9.3 or higher.
    • Allow host to view activity statuses of participants in breakout rooms (for example: share screen, raise hand reaction). This allows hosts and co-hosts to quickly view participants' audio and video status, if they are sharing their screen, and if they are using the raise hand reaction. This feature requires hosts and participants to have client version 5.10.3 or higher for activity statuses to appear, and does not apply to participants joining on certain devices such as phone, H.323, and SIP. 
  8. (Optional) To prevent all users in the group from changing this setting, click the lock icon , and then click Lock to confirm the setting.

User

To enable the breakout room feature for your own use:

  1. Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
  2. In the navigation menu, click Settings.
  3. Click the Meeting tab.
  4. Under In Meeting (Advanced), click the Breakout room toggle to enable it.
  5. If a verification dialog appears, click Enable to verify the change.
    Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at either the group or account level. You need to contact your Zoom admin.
  6. (Optional) Select the check boxes for the following breakout room options, then click Save:
    • Allow meeting hosts to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms
    • Allow host to broadcast message to participants: This allows the host to broadcast a text-based message to all participants in breakout rooms. 
    • Allow host to broadcast voice to breakout rooms: This allows the host to broadcast their microphone audio to all participants in breakout rooms. This feature requires 5.12.0 or higher.
    • Allow hosts to create, rename, and delete breakout rooms when rooms are open.
      Note: This option must be enabled by Zoom before it is available and requires 5.9.3 or higher.
    • Allow host to view activity statuses of participants in breakout rooms (for example: share screen, raise hand reaction). This allows hosts and co-hosts to quickly view participants' audio and video status, if they are sharing their screen, and if they are using the raise hand reaction. This feature requires hosts and participants to have client version 5.10.3 or higher for activity statuses to appear, and does not apply to participants joining on certain devices such as phone, H.323, and SIP.  

How to use meeting breakout rooms

After enabling breakout rooms, users can do the following:

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