Take Actions

Zoom offers a lot of options for taking an active role in a meeting. Your choices are always limited by powers granted by the host to participants or to you as an individual. But they can include:

• Speak up over audio.

• Share a file, screen, presentation, or app from your computer or mobile device. See Share Your Screen.

• Mark up a shared screen using the Annotate tool on the screen-sharing toolbar.

• Click or tap buttons to indicate responses, described in Interact in a Meeting.

• Type in a chat sessions to the host, the entire set of participants, or specific other members. See Chat in a Meeting.

Mute Audio and Manage Video

Generally, the mute button is your friend. For most sessions, mute yourself unless you’re actively speaking or playing sound for the other participants. Zoom provides a visual cue that mute is active and that no sound is being sent by showing the mic in red with a line through it.

When you need to speak:

• Use the Space bar: In desktop apps, leave audio muted and rely on the Space bar. Whenever you press and hold the Space bar, Zoom unmutes your audio and shows a visual indicator. Release it, and you’re back to being muted.

• Click the mic icon: In any Zoom app, you can click or tap the mic icon to toggle mute. You can click Unmute in the Participants sidebar in a desktop app. Remember to mute yourself again when you’re not speaking.

A host can mute all participants in a meeting and then unmute individuals or request that everyone turn audio back on. (Zoom asks each person the host wants to unmute if they want to start sending audio.)

You can also start and stop video. A host may ask people not to stream video when they’re not speaking (or at all). But you might choose not to be on camera all the time. (A host has the option to disable participants’ video, too.)

Turning off video also reduces your upstream bandwidth and the bandwidth consumed by other participants. Depending on who organized the meeting and under what expectations it takes place, you can click or tap the Stop Video button whenever you like.

Get Attention

In interactive meetings, if everyone talks whenever they like, things can get out of control. It can mean the loudest or most determined talker-overs dominate discussions.

A meeting host may implement technical controls or set and enforce terms. However, you can be part of setting a social or business culture in the absence of anyone else.

Here are a few methods to try:

• Your physical hand: Raise your actual hand or wave or make physical movement.

• Your virtual hand: Raise your virtual hand: click a button at the bottom of the Participants list in desktop apps or tap Raise Hand in the More menu in mobile apps. The host is alerted. You can also lower your hand after raising it.

• Use tiny signs: Small pre-printed signs with large, bold type legible in a small video screen can be a nice quiet way to express feedback, like “yes,” “no,” and “question.”

• Nonverbal feedback: A host unlocks a set of options by enabling nonverbal feedback in their meeting settings. Icons appear at the bottom of the Participants list (desktop) or in the More menu (mobile), and appear next to your name. Options include Raise/Lower hand, as well as “yes,” “no,” “go slower,” “clap,” “need a break,” and so on. A full list is available on a Zoom help page.

• Use Reactions: Click Reactions in a desktop app or tap the More icon in mobile apps, and you can select either the applause or thumbs up emoji. These appear briefly overlaid on your screen on everyone else’s meeting.

• Send a message to the host: If chat is enabled, you can tell the host you have a question, concern, or comment—but only if they have said up front that they welcome those messages, or if you know the host and don’t feel that it’s a problem to message them.

• Send Files and Chat: While in a meeting, you can also send files and chat with other people. See Chat in a Meeting.