Using gesture recognition

Participants can give more visible feedback through gestures by using gesture recognition. This feature translates a real-world gesture into Zoom’s existing reactions, allowing for visual gestures, such as a raised hand, to automatically display a corresponding meeting reaction and allow users to more easily react during a meeting or webinar. Currently, this feature is supported for Heart gesture , Double thumbs up for celebration , Okay sign , Thumbs up , Thumbs down , and Raise your hand . Unlike other gestures that trigger standard reaction, the Heart gesture and Double thumbs up for celebration display full-screen animations, hearts for the Heart gesture and fireworks for the Celebration gesture, creating a more expressive and engaging visual effect for participants.

Note: Thumbs up and hand raise gestures are available on 5.10.3 or later.

Other gestures are only available with version 6.6.0 or later.

Account owners and admins can enable or disable, as well as lock, this feature at the account level. By default, gesture recognition is disabled at the account and group levels but enabled for accounts that have meeting reactions and webinar reactions turned on.

Note: Apple also supports video effects using gestures on macOS Sonoma 14 and iOS 17. Depending on your macOS or iOS settings, these video effects may appear in your Zoom meetings, but are not controlled by Zoom. Learn how to disable these features through macOS settings.

Requirements for using gesture recognition

Limitations for gesture recognition

Gesture recognition has the following limitations:

Table of Contents

Best practices for using gesture recognition

How to enable gesture recognition in the Zoom app

Windows | macOS

Before the meeting starts

  1. Sign in to the Zoom Workplace desktop app.
  2. Click the Home tab then the Settings button  . Alternatively, click your profile picture then click Settings.
  3. Click Meetings & webinars.
  4. Under Reactions, click the Use hand gestures to activate reactions toggle to enable or disable it.

During a live meeting

  1. Join or start a meeting.
  2. In the meeting toolbar, click the up arrow  next to the React  button .
  3. Click the Use gestures to send reactions easily option to enable or disable gesture recognition.
    A checkmark to the left of the option indicates if gesture recognition is enabled or not. This in-meeting option syncs with the client setting option above.
iOS

Before the meeting starts

  1. Sign in to the Zoom Workplace app.
  2. Tap the More  button .
  3. Under Settings, tap Meetings.
  4. Under Automatic Reactions, click the Raise hand and/or Thumbs up toggle to enable or disable the gesture.

During a live meeting

  1. Join or start a meeting.
  2. Tap the More  button .
  3. Tap Meeting Settings  .
  4. Under Automatic Reactions, click the Raise hand and/or Thumbs up toggle to enable or disable the gesture.
  5. Click Done.

     

How to use gesture recognition

Windows | macOS
  1. Join a Zoom meeting or join a Zoom Webinar with your video turned on.
  2. Raise your hand and make a raised hand or heart gesture, do a thumbs up or a double thumbs up, an okay sign or a thumbs down.
  3. Hold the gesture for a couple of moments to allow the gesture to be recognized.
    The corresponding reaction will display above the React button in the meeting toolbar.
iOS
  1. Join a Zoom meeting or join a Zoom Webinar with a supported iPad
  2. Raise your hand and perform a thumbs up or raised hand gesture.
  3. Hold the gesture for a couple of moments to allow the gesture to be recognized.
    The corresponding reaction will display above the Reactions button in the meeting toolbar.