Zoom Breakout Rooms

Owned by Ron Ninmer (Deactivated)
Last updated: Aug 11, 2020
2 min read

Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting in up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host can choose to split the participants of the meeting into these separate sessions automatically or manually and can join and switch between sessions at any time to check in with each group.

The basics

  • Breakout Room participants have full audio, video and screen share capabilities
  • Participants can request help from a host while in a Breakout Room
  • Breakout rooms can be closed and reopened within the session

Note: Participants must be using the Zoom application to join Breakout Rooms, it is not possible to join via a web browser or in-room video conferencing system. As a workaround, these participants can use the main meeting room as their breakout session space. 

Breakout rooms and recording

  • If the meeting is being recorded to the cloud, the recording will only record the main room, regardless of what room the meeting host is in.
  • If the meeting is being recorded to a computer, the recording will include whatever breakout room the person recording participates in. Multiple people can record locally if allowed by the host. The host can designate one person in each Breakout Room to record locally and then share that file with the host after the meeting. This way, the host can have a record of what transpired in each room.

Creating Breakout Rooms

  1. Once in your meeting click on the Breakout Rooms icon

     2. Click Breakout Room from bottom menu bar.

     3. Choose to create rooms automatically or manually.

     4. Click Create Room.

     5. If you choose to Manually create Breakout rooms you can rename each Breakout Room simply by clicking on the room

     6. You can assign participants to each breakout room by clicking Assign next to each breakout room and choosing from the participant list

Communicate with Everyone in Breakout Rooms

  1. Click Broadcast a message to all.
  2. Type desired message and click Broadcast.



 Send participants back to Breakout Rooms

  1. Click Open All Rooms or
  2. Click Recreate to design new breakout rooms.


Move participants between Breakout Rooms

  1. Hover over a user’s name in the breakout list.
  2. Choose which room to move the participant to.