Use breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams meetings
Use breakout rooms in medium to large meetings with up to 300 people to foster more personal connections and meaningful discussions.
Meeting organizers using Teams for desktop can create and manage breakout rooms.
Notes: These features aren't currently available in breakout rooms:
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Adding people to the meeting from the participant's panel
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Adding additional people to the meeting chat
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Copying the Join meeting info
Important: If you create breakout rooms before a meeting, you won't be able to invite more than 300 people. For more info about managing large Teams meetings, see Best practices for a large Teams meeting.
In this article
Tip: For additional assistance, see Breakout rooms troubleshooting guide.
Create breakout rooms
To create breakout rooms, you must be a meeting organizer or a presenter in the meeting organizer's organization who's been appointed a breakout rooms manager.
To create breakout rooms before a meeting:
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Go to your Teams calendar.
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Select the meeting to view details.
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Select Breakout rooms > Create rooms.
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Choose the number of rooms you want (up to 50) and select Add rooms.
In this example, three rooms were created but no one's been assigned to them yet.
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Select Assign participants
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Choose whether you want Teams to evenly assign people to rooms (Automatically) or assign people yourself (Manually).
As soon as the meeting starts, you can open the breakout rooms.
To create breakout rooms during a meeting:
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Start the meeting.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Do the following:
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Choose the number of rooms you want (up to 50).
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Choose whether you want Teams to evenly assign people to rooms (Automatically) or assign people yourself (Manually).
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Select Create rooms.
To add another breakout room during the meeting, select Rooms 
Note: You won't be able to automatically assign people to breakout rooms later in the meeting.
Change breakout room settings
Make your meetings more efficient by adjusting breakout room settings before they start. Meeting organizers can plan ahead by creating and naming breakout rooms, sorting attendees into rooms, setting timers, and more.
To change breakout room settings before a meeting:
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Go to your Teams calendar and open the meeting invite.
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Go to Breakout rooms and select Settings.
Assign people to breakout rooms manually
Assign participants to each breakout room if you didn't do so automatically or need to reassign someone to another room. To assign people, you must be a meeting organizer or presenter who's been appointed a breakout rooms manager, and you must first join the meeting.
To assign people to breakout rooms manually before a meeting:
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Go to your Teams calendar and open the meeting invite.
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Go to Breakout rooms and select Assign participants.
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Select Manually > Next.
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Choose the people you want in a room by selecting the checkboxes next to their names.
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Select the down arrow next to Assign and choose a room for them.
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Repeat the previous steps until everyone in the meeting is assigned to a room. When you're done, select Confirm.
To assign people to breakout rooms manually during a meeting:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Assign participants.
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Select the dropdown arrow next to Name or Room to sort participants by name or room assignment.
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Select the checkboxes next to the names of people you want to assign to a room.
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Select the down arrow next to Assign and choose a room for them.
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Repeat the previous steps until everyone in the meeting is assigned to a room.
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When you're done, select Confirm.
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If someone joins the meeting late, select Assign participants again to assign them to a room.
Assign people manually before a channel meeting
To assign channel members to breakout rooms before a channel meeting starts, you must first join the meeting:
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Open Teams on your desktop and go to your team channel.
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Select the Breakout rooms tab.
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Select Assign participants and sort channel members into breakout rooms.
Meetings with breakout room capabilities are limited to 300 participants. If the channel contains more than 300 members, pre-assignment will not be available. Meeting organizers can also assign participants to breakout rooms during the meeting.
Shuffle participants in breakout rooms
Randomly assign participants to breakout rooms before and during a meeting. Shuffle everyone or just people who aren’t assigned to a room yet.
To shuffle participants in breakout rooms before a meeting:
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From your Teams calendar, open the meeting with breakout rooms.
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Select Assign participants > Shuffle.
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From the Shuffle dropdown menu:
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Select Everyone to shuffle all participants.
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Select Only unassigned people to shuffle participants who haven't been assigned to a room.
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Select Save to reassign participants to new breakout rooms.
To shuffle participants in breakout rooms during a meeting:
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Select Rooms
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In Breakout rooms, select Assign participants > Shuffle.
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From the Shuffle dropdown menu:
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Select Everyone to shuffle all participants.
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Select Only unassigned people to shuffle participants who haven't been assigned to a room.
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Select Save to reassign participants to new breakout rooms.
Appoint breakout room managers
If you're the meeting organizer, you can delegate presenters to manage the meeting's breakout rooms.
Breakout room managers can:
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Add and delete rooms
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Assign and reassign participants to rooms
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Open and close rooms
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Join any rooms
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Set time limits for room sessions
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Send announcements
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Recreate rooms
Important: Only one person at a time can manage a meeting's breakout rooms.
To appoint room managers before a meeting:
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Go to your Teams calendar and open the meeting invite.
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Go to Breakout rooms > Room settings
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Turn the Assign presenters to manage rooms toggle on.
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Select Search for presenters and designate room managers.
To appoint room managers during a meeting:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Room settings
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Turn the Assign presenters to manage rooms toggle on.
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If no one in the meeting is designated as a presenter, select Go to Meeting options to add presenters, and choose who you want to be a room manager.
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Choose presenters from the dropdown menu.
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Select the back button < to save your changes.
Rename breakout rooms
If you want, rename each room to reflect its purpose (for example, what the people in that room will be working on).
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Hover over the room and select More options
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Enter the new name.
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Select Rename room.
Tip: During the meeting, you can delete all the breakout rooms and set them up differently (see Recreate breakout rooms from scratch).
Set a time limit for breakout room sessions
When you set a time limit, a timer is visible in each breakout room so that participants are aware of when the session will end. When time is up, the rooms close and participants return to the main meeting.
To set a time limit for breakout room sessions:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Rooms settings
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Turn on the Set a time limit toggle.
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Choose a duration period for breakout room sessions.
Changes will save automatically.
Note: If you turn off automatic entry to breakout rooms, participants can return to the main meeting or leave the meeting when time is up.
Start using breakout rooms
By default, meeting participants are moved to their assigned rooms as soon as you open them, but you can turn off automatic entry to breakout rooms.
To open and start breakout room sessions:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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To open all the rooms at the same time, select Open.
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To open a single room, hover over the room and select More options
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Join a breakout room
If you're the meeting organizer or a breakout rooms manager, you can join any of the rooms.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Hover over a room and select More options
Leave a breakout room
To leave a breakout room and return to the main meeting, select Return in the meeting controls.
Interact with breakout room participants
As meeting organizer, you can send announcements to all the breakout rooms and contribute to any of the room chats.
Send an announcement to all breakout rooms
You may want to tell everyone what the remaining breakout session time is, offer discussion ideas, or just give general updates.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Make an announcement
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Enter your announcement and select Send.
Participants are notified in their meeting chat to check for your announcement.
Chat in breakout rooms
Each breakout room has its own chat. All of the chats are available in your main Teams chat list. Here you can chat with the members of any breakout room.
After you join a breakout room, you can also select Chat 
Note: When the breakout room closes, the room chat ends and can't be continued. However, you'll still be able to view the chat history and any shared files.
Close breakout rooms
When you close the breakout rooms, the participants return to the main meeting.
Note: If you turned off the Automatically move people into opened rooms setting (see Turn off automatic entry to breakout rooms), participants will have the option of returning to the main meeting or leaving the meeting when the rooms are closed.
To close rooms individually:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Hover over a room and select More options
To close all rooms at the same time:
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Close.
You'll know a room has successfully closed when its status changes to Closed.
When everyone is back from their breakout rooms and you're ready to meet as a larger group again, select Resume.
Notes:
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Breakout rooms remain open until the organizer manually closes them. If you set a duration of time for breakout room sessions, the breakout room will close automatically after time runs out.
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If the rooms are reopened later in the meeting, participants keep the same room assignments they had before.
Room assignments in recurring meetings
Unless the organizer manually unassigns people from their breakout rooms, the same rooms and room assignments will be available for the next meeting.
Attendance reports for breakout rooms
If you organize a meeting, you can gain insight into its participants and their breakout room activity through attendance reports. Learn which breakout room each person has joined, when they entered it, and when they left.
To view breakout room data from a meeting:
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Go to your Teams calendar.
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Select the meeting you want to see attendance reports for.
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Select Attendance.
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Under Participants, select an attendee to see which breakout room they entered and what time they joined and left it.
To reference breakout room data later, download the attendance report in CSV format.
Notes:
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Only meeting organizers can view attendance reports.
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Attendance reports don’t include data from deleted breakout rooms.
Additional options
By default, participants are automatically moved into breakout rooms when they're opened. When you turn off this option, participants receive a message asking them to join a breakout room. They select Join room (Join on a mobile device) before being moved.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Room settings
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Turn the Automatically move people to rooms toggle off.
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Select the back button < to save your changes.
Meeting attendees can learn more about joining and participating in breakout rooms here: Join a breakout room in a Teams meeting.
By default, this setting is off. Turning it on gives participants the option to leave their breakout rooms and return to the original meeting to rejoin the larger discussion.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Room settings
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Turn the Let people return to the main meeting toggle on.
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Select the back button < to save your changes.
Participants can be moved when breakout rooms are open or closed.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Assign participants and select the checkbox next to the person's name you want to move.
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Choose a new room for the person and select Assign > Move.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Hover over the room and select More options
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Remove rooms
During a meeting, you can delete all the breakout rooms, create new ones, and reassign participants to them.
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In the meeting controls, select Rooms
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Select Remove rooms
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