Creating and using continuous meeting chat

This feature allows meeting participants to communicate before, during, and after a meeting by creating a dedicated group chat in Zoom Team Chat for all meeting participants. When enabled, in-meeting chats will show up in that group chat as they are sent in the meeting, allowing meeting conversations to continue after a meeting ends. Schedule a recurring meeting and have a group chat that follows the group for the entire project, in and out of meetings.

Requirements for creating and using continuous meeting chat

• Zoom desktop app
  • Windows: 5.14.0 or higher
  • macOS: 5.14.0 or higher
  • Linux: 5.14.0 or higher
• Zoom mobile app
  • Android: 5.14.0 or higher
  • iOS: 5.14.0 or higher
• Zoom Rooms 5.14.0 or higher
• Team Chat and Meeting Chat enabled
• Continuous meeting chats enabled
• A scheduled meeting with attendees and Enable Continuous Meeting Chat enabled

Notes:

• The settings will be enabled by default for most customers. Enterprise customers will be enabled through the enterprise feature release controls.
• Zoom Mobile App does not yet support scheduling recurring meetings.
• If using an external calendar, such as Google Calendar or Outlook, it is recommended that the host have their calendar integrated with Zoom.

Limitations for continuous meeting chat

• Continuous meeting chat does not support use with your Personal Meeting Room.
  The meeting ID must be generated automatically.
• Meetings created before continuous meeting chat was enabled for your account are not automatically supported. The meeting must be edited or rescheduled to support continuous meeting chat. You must edit the meeting to add continuous meeting chat. To do this, edit the meeting and check or toggle the continuous meeting chat option. You can also use Zoom schedulers or integrations through Firefox or Google Chrome extensions, Google Workplace add-on, or Outlook add-in.
• Ad-hoc or instant meetings are not supported. The meeting must be scheduled.
• Offline or in-person calendar events will not create a dedicated group chat, as there is no associated Zoom Meeting.
• Chats happening in breakout rooms will not sync over to the meeting group chat.
• Group Lists or Distribution Lists are only supported through the Google Workspace Group Connector. If using group lists or distribution lists to quickly enter numerous participants to the invite, the individual members of the list will get meeting invites, and all internal contacts will be automatically added to the group chat. Individual contacts from the group or distribution list must be manually added to the group chat before or after the meeting.
• Interoperability with 3rd-party services through Mio is not supported at this time.
• Continuous meeting chat is not supported when Advanced Chat Encryption is enabled, or the meeting is scheduled with end-to-end encryption (E2EE).

How to schedule a meeting with continuous meeting chat

With continuous meeting chat enabled in your web settings, the Enable dedicated group chats for meeting conversations option is enabled by default when scheduling a meeting.

1. Begin to schedule a meeting.
2. Under the Attendees section (Invitees section in the web portal), search for contacts by name or email address.
3. Click to add each contact as an attendee.
4. (Optional) Click the X next to each contact name to remove them from the list.
5. Ensure the Enable Continuous Meeting Chat toggle is turned on. 
   When the meeting is saved, all attendees will have the meeting added to their upcoming meetings list.

Notes:

• Meetings scheduled via web, desktop, mobile, Outlook, Google, or browser extensions support Continuous Meeting Chat. Calendar add-ins or extensions use event attendees instead of Zoom contacts.
• Recurring meetings will have one group chat created for the entire series of meetings.
• If you don't invite anyone, the meeting will still be scheduled, but there won't be any existing attendees in the group chat.
• Inviting one contact will create a dedicated group chat associated with the meeting. Your one on one chat with that contact will not be used.
• External invitees are not auto-added to the meeting chat but can participate and see history from when they join. They won’t see past or post-meeting chats. Hosts can add them if allowed.
• Internal participants invited via the "Invite" feature or a shared link are not auto-added to the group chat or its history. However, the host or any group member can add them.
• Adding users to the meeting group chat does not automatically add them to the meeting invitation. Hosts should edit their invites and add any additional participants using their preferred scheduling tool.
• When using scheduling privilege to change the owner of a meeting scheduled with continuous meeting chat enabled, the owner of the dedicated group chat will also be changed.
• After the meeting, hosts can add internal attendees who were not in the group chat due to late invites or group list additions. They can approve all or select individuals to join.

How to use continuous meeting chat

Access the group chat before the meeting

A group chat will be automatically created when the meeting starts, but you can also access it and send messages to attendees before the first meeting ever starts. This can be used as an early staging area for the project you may be collaborating on, sharing meeting agendas or links to the group.

1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop app.
2. At the top of the app, click the Meetings tab  or Calendar tab .
   Note: If you have set up the calendar and contacts integration to connect your calendar, you will have the Calendar tab. If you haven’t connected your calendar, you will have the Meetings tab.
3. Click the Zoom meeting you want to open to access the group chat.
4. Under Invitees, click the Chat icon button .
   The group chat for this meeting will be opened in the Team Chat tab, as well as accessible by using the search bar.
5. Send and reply to messages.

   These messages will be available before, during, and after the meeting.

Send chat messages during the meeting

When the scheduled meeting is started, any previous messages from the group chat will be available. If the group chat was not yet accessed, it is now available and visible to all original attendees in Team Chat and updated immediately with all messages sent in the meeting.

While the meeting is in progress, users who have been included in the meeting group chat can send messages to the meeting chat. This allows them to notify active meeting participants if they are running late, unable to join, or to provide a quick response. These messages can be seen by everyone present in the meeting, including external users.

Send, reply, and react to messages during the meeting.
Note: Some options during the live meeting may be unavailable due to the host’s chat settings.

Any messages sent to Meeting Group Chat will be also immediately available in the dedicated group chat. Messages sent directly to another meeting participant (private messages) will not be included in the dedicated group chat, are only visible (and locally savable) by those privy to the private messages, and will be unrecoverable when the meeting ends (unless saved locally).

During the meeting, hosts can choose to disable or restrict the meeting chat to only Hosts and Co-hosts. In such cases, the compose box in the meeting group chat will be temporarily disabled. It will remain inactive until the host restores the meeting chat to full functionality, or until the meeting ends.

Guest participants

Any participants added during the live meeting, either by sharing the link or invited directly, or external participants, even if they were part of the original invite, will be treated as a guest participant.

Guest participants will be able to send messages and see other messages sent during the meeting from the moment they join, but are unable to load messages from before joining, including those sent in the group chat before the meeting started. Their messages will be included in the group chat, but they will not be able to access the group chat, until a member adds them to the group chat.

Guest participants who were invited and joined during the live session won’t be automatically added to the calendar event and must be manually invited. Editing the meeting and inviting additional participants varies on your scheduling method.

Zoom Room devices are also considered a guest for meeting chats. Since they are a shared device, they get to participate in meeting chat for the duration of the meeting, but they cannot chat before or after the meeting.

Note: While hosts can limit certain chat features, such as allowing participants to delete their own in-meeting messages or react with emojis, these restrictions do not apply to the meeting group chat.

How to use the group chat after the meeting

Find and access the group chat

When the meeting ends, the meeting chat will be available for all internal members originally invited to to continue the meeting conversation. 

The meeting chat will appear in the left sidebar of the Team Chat tab, as a group chat with the same name as the meeting topic. These group chats are indicated by the calendar icon . Recurring meetings will be indicated via a recurring calendar icon.

If your client settings have the Organize by section option selected under Team Chat in client older than 5.15.X, this appears as Separate Chats and Channels. These meeting chats will show up under a new Meeting Chats section. If Organize by section is not selected, your meeting chats will appear in order of recency just as your other chats. The group chat can be searched for by the meeting name, or accessed through the Meetings tab.

All public messages, reactions, and threaded replies sent before the meeting, as well as all public messages sent during the meeting, will be available in the group chat.

Add participants to the meeting group chat

Large meetings or meetings set up through group or distribution lists can miss some participants and label them as a Guest during the meeting, which keeps them from seeing the group chat outside of the meeting, even though they might be needed in the meeting group chat. A list of participants labeled as guests will be shown to the host in a card after the meeting, allowing the host to choose to add them to the group chat. The host can Approve all or select / deselect individual participants they want to add to the meeting group chat.

How to manage the meeting group chat

Add members to the group chat

Any guest participants from the live meeting (not originally invited or external participants) must be manually added to the dedicated group chat.

1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop app.
2. Click the Team Chat tab .
3. In the navigation menu, under Messages click the dedicated group chat for you meeting.
4. In the top-right corner, click More .
5. Click Add members.
   A window will appear to search for and add members.
6. Use the search box to search for users, select one or more users you want to invite.
   Any external participants in the meeting must be a contact before they can be added to the group chat. Learn how to add external contacts.
   Note: Admin settings may prevent external participants from being added as a contact, preventing a group chat member from adding a particular external participant.
7. Click Add to confirm the additions.
   These participants will now have access to the group chat and messages thus far.

Learn more about how to add and remove members in this group chat.

Change the settings of the meeting group

The meeting host, who is also the owner of the meeting group chat, can adjust the group chat's permissions, restricting visibility of messages and files sent before a new user is added or restricting the ability for external users (users not on your account) can be added to the group chat. 

Restrict message and file history 

1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop app.
2. Click the Team Chat tab .
3. Click the dedicated group chat.
4. In the top-right corner, click More .
5. Click More actions.
6. Click Edit meeting chat.
7. Under Message and file history, check or uncheck New members will see previous messages and files check box.
8. Click Save changes.

Restrict if external users can be added to the group chat

1. Sign in to the Zoom desktop app.
2. Click the Team Chat tab .
3. Click the dedicated group chat.
4. In the top-right corner, click More .
5. Click More actions.
6. Click Edit meeting chat.
7. Click Advanced Permissions.
8. Under Who can add external users option, check or uncheck the External users can be added check box. 
   Some organizations can lock this at account level.
9. Click Save changes.

Notes:

• The following group chat functionalities are not available for meeting group chats:
  • Editing the name of a meeting group chat is disabled. To edit the name or subject of a meeting, you should edit the meeting invite and the changes will be reflected instantaneously.
  • Meeting group chats cannot be converted to channels.
  • Assign a new owner. Meeting host is the owner of the meeting group chat.
  • Schedule a meeting or initiate an ad-hoc meeting from a meeting group chat.
• Only hosts who are also the owners can delete a meeting group chat.
• Deleting a meeting group chat prior to meeting start time will remove this functionality from that meeting. Participants will be able to attend the meeting but meeting chat will not be available after the meeting.
• Declining a meeting invite will not remove someone from the meeting group chat. Participants who do not wish to continue the conversation can leave the meeting group chat any time just as they’d do with other chats.