How Do I Create Zoom Breakout Rooms?

Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting in up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host or co-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 or co-host can switch between sessions at any time. Although Zoom Support has good information on managing breakout rooms, we wanted to highlight a few limitations for you here.

Quick Links: | Prerequisites | Instructions | Limitations |

Breakout rooms allow you to split your Zoom meeting into up to 50 separate sessions. The meeting host or co-host can choose to split the participants into these separate sessions automatically or manually, or they can allow participants to select and enter breakout sessions as they please. The host or co-host can switch between sessions at any time. This guide covers how to create and manage breakout rooms during your Zoom meeting.

Prerequisites

• Host or co-host role in the Zoom meeting
• Zoom desktop client (Windows, macOS) or mobile app (iOS, Android)
• Breakout rooms enabled

Step-by-Step Instructions

To create breakout rooms during your Zoom meeting, do the following:

1. During your meeting, from your Zoom taskbar, select Breakout Rooms.
2. Enter the number of rooms you want to create.
3. Choose the method for assigning participants: Automatically, Manually, or Let participants choose room.
4. Select Create.
   

To enable the option for participants to join breakout rooms themselves, do the following:

1. Select the option to Allow Participants to Choose Room.
2. Optionally, manually move participants around to different rooms before opening the rooms, rename rooms, etc.
3. Select Open All Rooms.
   
4. Once rooms are open, participants can no longer hear who is in the main room.
5. You can Send Announcement or Join the individual breakout rooms to help facilitate.

Limitations

• Only the host or co-host can assign participants to breakout rooms by default.
• Participants using the Zoom mobile app or H.323/SIP devices can join breakout rooms but cannot manage them.
• If the meeting is being cloud recorded, it will only record the main room. Local recordings will only capture the room the participant recording is in.
• You can create up to 50 breakout rooms. The maximum number of participants in a single breakout room depends on the meeting capacity and the number of breakout rooms created.

Task	Host	Co-Host
Assigning, starting, and ending breakout rooms	✔	✔
Move between breakout rooms	✔	✔
Broadcast message to all	✔	✔
Notified of Requests for Help	✔

Still need help? If you run into problems or still need help, reach out to the Technology & Learning Program.