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How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom

Setting up Zoom breakout rooms takes a bit of prep before the meeting, plus a few options once you are actually in one.

  1. Turn on breakout rooms in your account settings

    Before your first use, go to Zoom's web portal under Settings > Meeting, and make sure "Breakout room" is toggled on -- it is off by default on some account types.

  2. Open the Breakout Rooms panel during a meeting

    Once the meeting starts, click "Breakout Rooms" in the meeting toolbar (you may need to click "More" first if the toolbar is condensed).

  3. Choose the number of rooms and assignment method

    Pick how many rooms to create, then choose whether Zoom assigns participants automatically, you assign them manually, or participants choose their own room themselves.

  4. Review and create the rooms

    After the initial assignment, you can still drag participants between rooms manually before opening them, then click "Create Rooms" to finalize the setup.

  5. Open the rooms and manage them live

    Click "Open All Rooms" to send everyone in; from the same panel you can broadcast a message to every room, set a countdown timer to auto-close them, or join any individual room yourself.

Why the setting has to be turned on beforehand

Breakout rooms are an account-level feature that has to be explicitly enabled in the web portal before it shows up as an option inside an actual meeting -- if the toolbar button is missing, this setting, rather than something in the meeting itself, is almost always the reason.

Manual, automatic, or self-select assignment

Automatic assignment is fastest for large, unstructured groups; manual assignment suits situations where specific people need to be grouped together, like mixing skill levels; and letting participants pick their own room works well for optional, interest-based breakouts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I change room assignments after the rooms are already open?

Yes -- the host can still move participants between open rooms, and participants themselves can sometimes switch rooms if "Allow participants to choose room" was enabled beforehand.

Do breakout room conversations get recorded if I am recording the main meeting?

Cloud recording generally only captures the main room by default. Recording an individual breakout room typically requires a participant in that specific room to start a local recording, if the host has allowed it.