How do I use breakout rooms in Zoom as a host?

Breakout rooms allow you to divide Zoom participants into smaller groups. You can assign participants to breakout rooms randomly, manually, or in advance.

In order to use Breakout Rooms in a meeting, you must first enable the breakout room for that meeting. Follow the following steps to enable breakout rooms for your meeting (step 1 below), then learn how to manage breakout rooms as a host in step 2.

The following instructions are borrowed from Zoom's help articles on Breakout Rooms. You can find more details about breakout rooms here.

Step 1 - Enabling breakout rooms for your Zoom meeting

Enable Breakout Rooms as an End-User

To enable the Breakout Room feature for your own use:
Sign in to the Zoom web portal.
Click Account Management > Settings .
Navigate to the Breakout Room option on the Meetingtab and verify that the setting is enabled.
If the setting is disabled, click the toggle to enable it. If a verification dialog displays, choose Turn On to verify the change.

Note: If the option is grayed out, it has been locked at either the Group or Account level, and you will need to contact your Zoom administrator.
(Optional) Click the checkbox to allow meeting hosts to pre-assign participants to breakout rooms.

Step 2 -Managing Breakout rooms on a Mac or Windows computer

Creating Breakout Rooms

Note: As of Zoom Version 5.3.0, you can have participants choose their own breakout rooms. You can also pre-assign participants to breakout rooms when you schedule the meeting instead of managing them during the meeting.