How to create breakout rooms in Google Meet for smaller group sessions
- You can create breakout rooms in Google Meet as a way to divide a conference call into smaller sessions.
- You need a paid subscription version of the service to access this feature.
- Once created, breakout rooms can be edited or ended at any time.
Breakout rooms in Google Meet allow moderators to divide the participants of a video conference into smaller groups.
This creates one or more separate video calls within the main video call, where each group cannot see or hear the other groups. Other video call services, like Zoom, also offer this feature, which is useful for breaking employees into teams or for classroom settings. When you want everyone to regroup, you can end the breakout rooms and everyone will rejoin the main call.
While Google Meet is free, the breakout room feature is only available to users with some paid, upgraded version of the service like Google Workspace Essentials or G Suite for Education.
Creating breakout rooms takes only a minute and may change the way you think about remote meetings.
How to create breakout rooms in Google Meet (as a moderator)
You can create up to 100 breakout rooms in Google Meet. Google recommends limiting breakout room privileges to moderators, particularly for teachers with a classroom full of students.
1. Start a video call in Google Meet.
2. Click the "Activities" icon (an icon of a circle, square, and triangle) in the top right corner.
3. Click "Breakout rooms."
4. Click the "Edit" pencil icon and choose the number of breakout rooms you want to create.
5. Participants are then distributed across the rooms. You can move people to different rooms by either entering someone's name into the room or clicking and dragging it there. The shuffle button mixes groups at random.
6. Click "Open Rooms" in the bottom right to activate the rooms.
Once participants are in their breakout rooms, they may ask for your help. A notification for you to join their room will appear - click "Join" to join or "Later." A banner reading "Asked for help" will appear above rooms that have reached out to you.
You can also set a timer for breakout rooms by visiting the top of the breakout rooms panel and clicking on the hourglass icon. You can change or remove the timer at any point.
How to join, exit, edit, or end all breakout rooms
After you've created breakout rooms, you can make changes to them or hop in yourself. A note to both you and breakout room participants: Moderators can only see a breakout room's internal messages while they are in that breakout room.
- Join a room by selecting a room number and clicking "Join."
- Exit that same room click "Leave" next to the room number.
- To make changes to the number of groups or who is in them click "Edit rooms."
- End all breakout rooms by selecting "Close rooms" in the top right of the breakout rooms panel. Click "Close all rooms" in the pop-up window.
How to join breakout rooms in Google Meet (as a participant)
You'll receive an invitation to join a room that's been created for you. When breakout rooms end, you'll receive a notification that you are returning to the main room.
1. Join the call.
2. You'll see a prompt to join the room a moderator has invited you to. Click "Join." You'll stay in the main room if you click "Cancel" instead.
3. If you're calling by phone, dial *2 to go to your breakout room or to return to the main room.
4. If you're on a computer or mobile app, click "Return to main call" at the top of the screen if you wish to go to the main room.
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How to raise a hand in Google Meet to help prevent people from talking over each other in a meeting
How to change your background in Google Meet before or during a meeting
How to blur your background in Google Meet calls to hide your surroundings and keep the focus on you
How to cast a Google Meet video call from your computer to a TV screen