How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom: Setup, Assign & Manage
Step-by-step instructions for creating breakout rooms in Zoom on desktop and mobile, plus tips for pre-assigning participants and running better sessions.
This is an independent guide. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Zoom Video Communications, Inc.
You're running a workshop with 30 people on Zoom. You ask the group to brainstorm ideas. Silence. One person talks while 29 others stare at their screens on mute. Twenty minutes pass and you've gotten input from exactly three participants.
Breakout rooms fix this. They split your Zoom meeting into smaller groups where everyone actually talks. Instead of one awkward conversation with 30 people, you get six focused conversations with five people each.
This guide shows you exactly how to create breakout rooms in Zoom, step by step. You'll learn how to enable the feature, assign participants manually or automatically, pre-assign rooms before a meeting, and manage breakout sessions on both desktop and phone.
What are Zoom breakout rooms?
Zoom breakout rooms are separate sessions that split a Zoom meeting into up to 50 smaller groups. The host creates rooms, assigns participants, and can switch between rooms at any time. Participants can share screens, chat, and use audio/video independently within each room. Available on desktop, mobile, and web.
How to Enable Breakout Rooms in Zoom Settings
Before you can create breakout rooms in Zoom, you need to turn the feature on in your account settings. This is a one-time setup.
- 1Sign in to the Zoom web portal
Go to zoom.us and log in with your account. You need to use the web portal for this step; the desktop app doesn't have this setting.
- 2Open Meeting settings
Click "Settings" in the left sidebar, then select the "Meeting" tab. Scroll down to the "In Meeting (Advanced)" section.
- 3Toggle on Breakout Room
Find the "Breakout Room" option and flip the toggle to blue (enabled). Optionally, check "Allow host to assign participants to breakout rooms when scheduling" if you want to pre-assign rooms before meetings start.
Account vs. user settings: If you're a Zoom admin, you can enable breakout rooms at the account level (Settings > Account Settings) so all users in your organization get the feature. Individual users can also enable it for just their own meetings.
Free accounts included. Breakout rooms are available on all Zoom plans, including the free tier. You don't need a paid license to use them.
How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom During a Meeting
Once the feature is enabled, here's how to create breakout rooms while your meeting is running. You must be the host or co-host.
- 1Click the Breakout Rooms button
In the meeting toolbar at the bottom, click "Breakout Rooms." If you don't see it, click "More" (three dots) first. The breakout rooms panel opens.
- 2Choose the number of rooms
Select how many breakout rooms you want. Zoom supports up to 50 rooms per meeting. For most sessions, 3 to 6 rooms works best depending on your group size. Aim for 4 to 6 people per room.
- 3Pick an assignment method
Choose how participants get assigned: "Automatically" distributes people randomly across rooms, "Manually" lets you drag and drop each person into a specific room, or "Let participants choose room" allows people to self-select.
- 4Click Create
Click "Create" to set up the rooms. The rooms exist now but nobody has moved yet. You can rename rooms, reassign participants, or adjust settings before opening them.
- 5Open All Rooms
Click "Open All Rooms" when you're ready. Participants get a popup inviting them to join their assigned room. They have 60 seconds to accept before Zoom moves them automatically (if you've enabled auto-move in options).
Renaming and Adjusting Rooms
After creating rooms, hover over a room name and click the pencil icon to rename it. This is useful when each room has a different discussion topic. For example, "Group A: Marketing Ideas" and "Group B: Product Feedback."
You can also move participants between rooms after they're open. Click the participant's name in the breakout room panel and select "Move to" with the target room.
How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom in Advance
You don't have to wait until the meeting starts. Pre-assigning breakout rooms saves time, especially for recurring team sessions or classroom settings where you want the same groups each week.
- 1Schedule a meeting on the web portal
Go to zoom.us, click "Meetings," and either schedule a new meeting or edit an existing one. Pre-assignment only works through the web portal, not the desktop app.
- 2Enable breakout room pre-assign
Scroll down to the meeting options and check "Breakout Room pre-assign." Two options appear: "Create Rooms" for manual setup or "Import from CSV" for bulk assignment.
- 3Create rooms and add participants
Click "Create Rooms." Add room names, then type participant email addresses into each room. Participants must be signed into the Zoom account matching that email for the assignment to work.
- 4Save the meeting
Click "Save." When you start the meeting, open the Breakout Rooms panel and click "Recreate" then "Recover to pre-assigned rooms" to load your saved assignments.
CSV Import for Large Groups
Running a workshop with 100 participants? Skip manual entry. Create a CSV file with two columns: "Pre-assign Room Name" and "Email Address." Upload it in the pre-assign settings and Zoom assigns everyone automatically.
This saves 15 to 20 minutes of setup time for large sessions. Teachers running weekly classes particularly benefit since you can reuse the same CSV file each week.
Limit to know: you can pre-assign up to 1,000 participants across all rooms. For recurring meetings, the pre-assignment applies to every instance unless you edit individual occurrences.
How to Use Breakout Rooms in Zoom as a Participant
If you're not the host, your breakout room experience looks different. Here's what to expect.
When the host opens breakout rooms, you see a popup asking you to join your assigned room. Click "Join" and you're in. Your screen shifts to the smaller room where you can see and hear only the people in your group.
Picture this: you're in a company training session with 50 people. The facilitator creates five rooms of ten for a case study exercise. You click "Join," and suddenly you're in a room with nine colleagues who are all actually talking, instead of 49 people on mute.
Inside the breakout room, you can:
- Share your screen
- Use the chat (breakout room chat is separate from the main meeting chat)
- Use reactions and raise your hand in Zoom
- Click "Ask for Help" to request the host join your room
Self-select rooms: if the host allows it, you can pick which room to join. Click "Breakout Rooms" in your toolbar and choose a room from the list. You can also switch rooms on your own.
When the host closes breakout rooms, you get a 60-second countdown before Zoom moves you back to the main meeting.
How to Create Breakout Rooms in Zoom on Phone
You can create and manage breakout rooms from the Zoom mobile app on iPhone and Android. The steps are slightly different from desktop.
- Start or join a meeting as the host
- Tap "More" (three dots) in the bottom-right corner
- Tap "Breakout Rooms"
- Choose the number of rooms and assignment method
- Tap "Create Breakout Rooms"
- Tap "Open All Rooms" to start
What's different on mobile: you can't pre-assign rooms from the mobile app. You also can't import CSV files. If you need pre-assignment, set it up on the web portal before the meeting, then start the meeting from your phone.
Managing rooms on phone works the same as desktop. Tap the breakout rooms icon to see all rooms, move participants, send broadcasts, and close rooms. The interface is compact but fully functional.
For a better mobile meeting experience, make sure your Zoom app is updated to the latest version. Breakout room features on mobile require Zoom version 5.4.0 or later.
Tips for Running Better Breakout Room Sessions
Creating rooms is the easy part. Running them well takes a bit more thought. Here are eight practical tips.
Set a clear goal for each room. Don't just say "discuss among yourselves." Give each group a specific question to answer or a task to complete. Send the instructions via broadcast message so every room gets them.
Keep groups small. 4 to 6 people per room is the sweet spot. With 3 or fewer, one quiet person makes it awkward. With 7 or more, people start going on mute again.
Use the broadcast feature. Click "Broadcast a message to all" in the breakout rooms panel to send a text message to every room simultaneously. Use it for time warnings ("5 minutes left"), clarifications, or additional instructions.
Set a timer. In the breakout room options, enable "Automatically close breakout rooms after X minutes." This keeps sessions focused. Give a countdown warning (usually 60 seconds) so groups can wrap up.
Visit rooms as the host. Click "Join" next to any room to drop in. This lets you check progress, answer questions, and keep groups on track. You can move between rooms freely.
Assign a note-taker per room. Ask each group to designate someone to take notes in the breakout room chat or a shared doc. Breakout room chat history disappears when rooms close, so notes need to be saved elsewhere.
Debrief after closing rooms. When participants return to the main meeting, give each group 2 to 3 minutes to share their key takeaways. This makes the breakout time feel purposeful.
For more ideas on making virtual sessions interactive, check out our guide on engaging online meetings.
Breakout Room Limitations and Better Alternatives
Zoom breakout rooms are useful, but they have real constraints that trip up hosts regularly.
Host-dependent. Only the host or co-host can create and manage rooms. Participants can't create their own rooms or move freely between groups unless the host enables self-selection.
No persistent chat. Breakout room chat messages vanish when rooms close. If someone shared an important link or idea in chat, it's gone unless they saved it manually.
Setup overhead. Every meeting requires the host to create rooms, assign people, and manage the session. For daily standups or recurring team check-ins, this gets tedious fast.
Rigid structure. Rooms are fixed once created. You can't casually walk over to another conversation like you would in a real office or conference.
50-room cap. Large events are limited to 50 breakout rooms with a maximum of 1,000 participants across all rooms (200 on the free plan).
If your team needs frequent small-group conversations without the setup overhead, spatial platforms offer a different approach. In virtual office tools like Flat.social, participants move freely through a 2D space and talk to whoever is nearby. No rooms to create, no assignments to manage. Walk up, start talking, walk away when you're done.
This works especially well for daily team interactions, networking events, and online team activities where organic conversations matter more than structured breakout sessions.
FAQ
Start Using Breakout Rooms in Your Next Meeting
Breakout rooms turn passive Zoom meetings into active group sessions. Here's your quick action plan:
- Enable breakout rooms in your Zoom web portal settings (one-time setup)
- Create rooms during your next meeting with 3 to 6 people per room
- Pre-assign participants for recurring sessions to save setup time
- Broadcast clear instructions so every group knows what to work on
- Debrief when rooms close so the whole group benefits from each conversation
For teams that want small-group conversations every day without the room setup, Flat.social's spatial virtual office makes it automatic. Walk up, talk, walk away.
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