If you’re on a Pro, Business, Education, or API Partner Zoom account and are hosting a meeting, you can assign co-hosts. Once someone is a co-host, they can use many of the same meeting controls that the host has. That takes the pressure off you having to manage everyone in the meeting at once. And you can also take away someone’s co-hosting powers if they aren’t using them properly.
You can even make another attendee the host if you need to leave the meeting, or if they were supposed to be in charge of the meeting to begin with. Let’s learn together how to use these powerful administrative functions in Zoom.
What is covered in this article
We’ll start with a look at what a co-host in Zoom is, and what they can and can’t do.
Zoom co-host role: what does it mean?
A Zoom co-host is a participant in a Zoom meeting who has been given limited administrative powers by the host for that meeting. That means they can do some of the same things the host does, like start or stop a meeting recording, or perform various other management functions on the other attendees.
Additionally, a Zoom meeting can have any number of co-hosts!
What a co-host can’t do
While a co-host shares many of the same powers that the host does, there are some functions that are restricted to solely the host. So a co-host cannot:
- Start a meeting on the host’s behalf (requires an alternative host)
- Give or transfer co-host powers to another participant
- Give another participant permission to record the meeting
- Start Breakout Rooms, or move other participants between rooms
- Start the Waiting Room feature (but can move participants in and out of it)
- Start live streaming
- Start closed captioning, or assign a provider
- End the meeting for everyone
For a full comparison of what each person in a meeting can or can’t do, see Zoom’s explanation of meeting roles.
How to enable Zoom co-hosting on your account
Before anyone can co-host a Zoom meeting that you host, you have to enable the ability to do so first. And this can only be done if you have a Pro, Business, Education, or API Partner hosting license (or are a user on an account managed by somebody who has one). See our Zoom pricing and subscriptions tutorial for more information about these license types.
If you meet the requirements, you can enable (or disable) co-hosting in the Settings area of your account. Here’s how:
- Open a new tab or window in your web browser. Go to Zoom.us and log into your account.
- From your main dashboard, click Settings.
- Make sure the Meeting tab is selected; if not, click it to select it.
- Scroll down to the option labeled “Co-Host” and make sure its toggle button is “On” (i.e. blue, like in the screenshot below, as opposed to gray). If it isn’t, click it to switch it to the “On” position. If a dialog box appears, click Turn On to verify that you want to make this change.
(Image credit: Zoom Help Center)PRO TIP
If this option cannot be changed, one of your account’s administrators has locked the ability to change it for your work group or organization. Contact them if you want to be able to enable or disable it for your own use.
If you’re able to get co-hosting enabled on your account, well done! Now, our next section will explain the process of how to add a co-host to a Zoom meeting.
How to assign a Zoom co-host during a meeting
There are two ways in Zoom to assign a co-host when hosting a Zoom meeting. The first is from the main meeting window. The second is from the “Participants” window.
To have Zoom make someone a co-host from the main meeting window:
- Move your cursor over a participant’s portrait or video feed. You should see the More Options (“…”) button appear. Click that.
- Select Make Co-Host from the menu that appears. If a dialog box appears, click Yes to confirm the action.
To have Zoom add a co-host from the “Participants” window:
- Click the Participants tab.
- Move your cursor over the attendee whom you wish to make a co-host, and click the More button.
(Image credit: Zoom Help Center) - Click Make Co-Host in the menu that appears. If a dialog pops up, just click Yes to confirm your choice.
(Image credit: Zoom Help Center)
PRO TIP
You can also repeat either of these processes, but click Withdraw Co-Host Permission instead of Make Co-Host, if you want a co-host to not have their privileges anymore.
So that’s how you add or remove co-hosts from a Zoom meeting. But what if you want to change who’s actually in charge of the meeting? There are, in fact, ways to do that. We’ll cover them in our next section on how to change the host in a Zoom meeting.
How to change the host of a Zoom meeting
If making someone a co-host just won’t cut it, the host can designate them to be the new host of the meeting instead. This is useful, for example, if the current host has to leave the meeting early but wants it to continue without them. Or maybe someone had to temporarily claim hosting powers and manage the meeting because it started before the original host arrived.
Just be careful, though, because there can only ever be one host in a Zoom meeting. So when you change a host in Zoom, the person who was previously the host loses all of their hosting privileges for that meeting. And they can’t get them back unless the current host returns them!
PRO TIP
Changing a meeting’s host does not affect any duration limits on the meeting. So there will still be a 40-minute limit if the original host is a Basic user and there are at least 3 users in the meeting at one time. Giving host powers to a licensed user, or leaving the meeting thereafter, will not remove this time limit.
There are two main methods for how to assign a new host in a Zoom meeting. One is in the middle of the meeting, and the other is right before the current host leaves the meeting.
Changing a Zoom meeting’s host in the middle of the meeting
- As the host of a meeting, click the Participants tab in the main meeting controls.
- Move your cursor over the participant whom you wish to transfer host powers to, and click the More button.
(Image credit: Zoom Help Center) - In the menu that appears, click Make Host. If a dialog box opens asking you to confirm your choice, click Yes to finalize it.
(Image credit: Zoom Help Center)
Changing a Zoom meeting’s host when the host leaves the meeting
IMPORTANT
Changing the host for a Zoom meeting right before the host leaves the meeting only works on the Zoom desktop client (Windows, MacOS, and Linux). It will not work if the host attempts to leave a meeting from any other client, and the meeting will end instead.
- As the meeting host, click End in the control toolbar.
- You will see two options: end the meeting for everyone, or individually leave and let the meeting continue without you. Click Leave Meeting to do the latter.
- You will be asked to pass your host controls to another participant before you leave. Click on an attendee’s name from the list of participants to select them, and then click Assign and Leave.
We should also mention that there are ways to change the host before or shortly after the meeting starts. However, they each require a specific set of circumstances. We’ll talk more about those in our lesson on how to start & record a Zoom meeting without a host.
Anyway, those are our explanations for how to assign a new host or co-host in a Zoom meeting! Next, check out some of Zoom’s other great features, or brush up on basic Zoom meeting controls.
