Use breakout rooms in a video meeting

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You can use this feature only if your organization supports it. For help, contact your administrator.

In Google Meet, if the meeting moderator allows, you can join a breakout room and have a discussion in a smaller group. Meeting participants with non-Google user accounts need to join the main meeting room first, before they can be assigned to a breakout room as anonymous users. You can’t add non-Google users to breakout rooms via Google Calendar.

Note: You can’t currently live stream or record breakout rooms.

Create breakout rooms in advance on Google Calendar

For a new meeting

1. Open Calendar and create a new event.
2. Click Add Google Meet video conferencing.
3. Add participants.
4. Next to Join with Google Meet, click Change conference settings .
5. On the left, click Breakout rooms .
6. Choose the number of breakout rooms, then choose an option:
   • Drag participants into different rooms.
   • Enter names directly into a room.
   • Click Shuffle to mix the groups.
7. Click Save.

For an existing meeting

1. Open Calendar and click Edit event . 
2. Under Event Details, click Change conference settings .
3. On the left, click Breakout rooms .
4. Choose the number of breakout rooms, then choose an option:
   • Drag participants into different rooms
   • Enter their name directly into a room 
   • Click Shuffle to mix the groups
5. Click Save.

Create breakout rooms during a meeting

Only moderators can create breakout rooms. If needed, you can transfer the meeting to another moderator.

1. On your computer, start a video meeting.
2. At the bottom, click Activities Breakout rooms.
3. Click Set up breakout rooms .
4. Choose the number of breakout rooms. You can create up to 100 breakout rooms in a video meeting.
5. (Optional) To set up a timer for your rooms:
   1. Click Timer .
   2. Check the End breakout rooms after a set amount of time box.
   3. Set the timer amountclick OK.        

      Note: Each room will display a 30-second countdown before the timer ends. To edit or remove the timer, click Timer uncheck the End breakout rooms after a set amount of time boxclick OK.

6. Meeting participants are automatically distributed across the breakout rooms. To manually move people into different rooms, choose an option:
   • Enter the participant’s name directly into a room.
   • Drag the participant’s name to another breakout room.
   • To randomly mix up the participants again, click Shuffle .
   • To move all the participants back into the main meeting, click Clear .
7. When you’re ready to start using breakout rooms, at the bottom, click Open rooms.

Join a breakout room

If you’re a participant, you can speak to or send chat messages to other participants in a breakout room. Your moderator can join each breakout room at any time during the video meeting.

1. From your computer or the Meet mobile app, join a video meeting.
2. When your moderator invites you to join a breakout room, you’ll see a prompt on your screen. Click or tap Join. If you click or tap Cancel, you still remain in the main video meeting.
   Note: If you dialed in using your phone, tap *2 to go to your breakout room, move between breakout rooms, or return to the main room.
3. (Optional) To leave a breakout room, at the top, click or tap Return to main meeting.

Edit, leave, or end breakout rooms

If you’re the moderator, you can make changes to or join rooms to monitor and participate in discussions.

Note: Moderators won't see chat messages between participants before they join or after they leave a breakout room.

• To make changes to the participant groups or number of breakout rooms, under Breakout rooms, click Edit rooms make your changesclick Save.
• To join an individual breakout room, next to the room, click Join.
• To leave a breakout room, click Leave.
• To end breakout rooms, under Breakout rooms, click Close rooms Close all rooms.
• If a participant asks for help, you get a notification above a breakout room. Next to the room that needs help, click Join.

Transfer a meeting to another moderator

Anyone who schedules or starts a video meeting is the moderator. There can only be one moderator per meeting, but you can transfer the meeting to someone else if needed. Learn more

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