Understanding roles in a Zoom meeting

There are multiple roles available for a meeting: host, co-host, alternative hosts, and participants. The role that you have in a meeting is designated by the host.

• Host: The user that scheduled the meeting. They have full permissions to manage host controls and manage participants. There can only be one host of a meeting.
• Co-hosts: Shares most of the controls that hosts have, allowing the co-host to manage the administrative side of the meeting, such as managing attendees. The host must assign a co-host during the meeting. Co-hosts cannot start a meeting. If a host needs someone else to start the meeting, they can assign an alternative host.
• Alternative hosts: Shares the same controls as co-hosts, but can also start the meeting. Hosts can assign alternative hosts when they schedule a meeting.

Note: If you need to schedule a meeting on behalf of another user, use scheduling privilege. 

Comparison of role permissions in a Zoom meeting

The following table compares the meeting controls available to the host, co-hosts, alternative hosts, and participants.

• Features with an asterisk (*) can be disabled by the meeting host.
• Some features are dependent on certain requirements. If you do not see a feature, review the article to see if your account meets those requirements.

Notes:

¹ Alternative hosts can start the meeting by using the meeting ID or meeting link from the invitation email. The meeting will not display in their upcoming meetings list in the desktop or mobile app for alternative hosts. Co-hosts cannot start meetings scheduled by the host. Co-hosts cannot be assigned ahead of time. The host has to promote a participant to co-host during the meeting.

² Alternative hosts can't add or edit polls unless you enable the setting for allowing alternative hosts to add or edit polls.

³ Hosts and co-hosts cannot start cloud recording and computer recording at the same time. Once the host or co-host begins cloud recording, computer recording cannot be started. Additionally, the host and co-host cannot control both cloud and computer recordings separately.

• If you start computer recording then start a cloud recording afterwards, both the cloud recording and computer recording will stop whenever the host or co-host stops recording. You cannot stop the computer recording without stopping the cloud recording.

⁴ Alternative hosts can start live streams, if they are currently the host in the meeting. If the host joins and they are demoted to the co-host role, they will be unable to initiate live streams.

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