Zoom: Breakout Rooms (Faculty/Hosts)

Zoom updates it's software on a regular basis with important security items as well as updates to features. To make sure you have the most current version, check for updates.

Breakout Rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting into separate rooms (50 maximum). Breakout room participants have full audio, video, and screen sharing capabilities. This feature is ideal for online office hours, where more than one student may join your Zoom session and you need a "waiting room" for other students while you maintain privacy with another. It is also good for small group collaboration, where everyone can eventually return to the main room and have a larger discussion.

Getting Started:

To manage video breakout rooms, you may first need to update Zoom on your computer.

Creating Video Breakout Rooms:

1.  Start a Zoom meeting.

2.  Click the Breakout Room option from the menu bar at the bottom of your Zoom screen.


3.  Select the number of rooms you would like to create and how you would like to assign your participants to those rooms.

  • Automatically:  Let Zoom split your participants up evenly into each of the rooms
  • Manually:  Choose which participants you would like in each room


4.  Click on Create Breakout Rooms.  Your rooms will be created but will not start automatically.  Once the rooms are created, you can manage the rooms prior to starting them.

Assigning Participants to Rooms:

To assign participants to your Breakout Rooms, click on Assign next to the room you wish to assign participants to and select the checkbox next to each participant you wish to assign to that room.


Once a participant has been assigned (manually or automatically), the number of participants will show in place of the Assign button.

Participants who are not assigned to a room will remain in the main meeting when the Breakout Rooms are started.


Preparing Breakout Rooms:

If you would like to make changes to the room assignments, you must do this before starting the Breakout Rooms.
  • Move a participant to another room:  Hover over the participant you would like to move.  Click on Move to and select a room to move the participant to.

  • Swap participants between rooms:  Hover over one of the participants you want to exchange.  Click on Exchange and select the other participant you would like to change with.

  • Delete a Room:  Hover over the name of the room.  Click on Delete and select Yes.

  • Recreate:  Allows you to start the Breakout Room creations from scratch.
  • Add a Room:  Add another Breakout Room.

Starting the Breakout Rooms:

Click on Start All Rooms.  Participants will receive a prompt to join the Breakout Room.  The host will be left in the main meeting until manually joining one of the rooms. The following message will be shown while a participant is being moved to a Breakout Room.


Managing Breakout Rooms - In Progress:

The host may move between breakout rooms at any point during the meeting.  The host can see a list of all participants and which room the participants are assigned to.  If a participant has not joined the breakout room yet, it will be noted by "(not joined)" next to their name.


  • Join:  Allows the host to join the breakout room selected.
  • Leave:  Allows the host to leave the breakout room and return to the main meeting (only shows when in a Breakout Room).
  • Stop All Rooms:  Will start a 30 second countdown to end all breakout rooms.  This countdown is shown to both the host and participants, and once the countdown is completed, all participants will be returned back to the main meeting.
Asking for Help (Participants):

Participants in the breakout rooms can request that the meeting host join their meeting by clicking the Ask for Help button in the menu bar.


The meeting host will be prompted to join the room where the request originated from.  Select Join Breakout Room to join the room.

See Also


Keywordszoom, zoom meeting, invite zoom, meet in zoom, invite people to zoom meeting, students meet in zoom, virtual meeting, online meeting, synchronous meeting, real time meeting, video meeting, group work, breakout, separate, break out room, break out, breakout session, break out session   Doc ID72679
OwnerZoom Z.GroupSouthern Illinois University Edwardsville
Created2017-04-18 10:21:06Updated2021-11-16 10:26:47
SitesSouthern Illinois University Edwardsville
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