In all but the smallest meetings, it can be difficult to have open discussions and a meaningful exchange of ideas. With breakout rooms, people gather in small groups for lively conversation and brainstorming sessions.
Only meeting organizers on the desktop versions of Teams (Windows and Mac) can create and manage breakout rooms.
Create breakout rooms
You can automatically assign people to breakout rooms when you create them. If you want to move people around later in the meeting, you'll have to do so manually.
To create breakout rooms, you must be a meeting organizer or presenter who's been appointed a breakout rooms manager.
Go to your Teams calendar and open the meeting invite.
Go to Breakout rooms and select Create rooms.
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.
Select Assign participants.
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.
Start the meeting.
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Do the following:
Choose the number of rooms you want (up to 50).
Choose whether you want Teams to evenly assign people to rooms (Automatically) or assign people yourself (Manually).
Select Create Rooms
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.
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Select Assign participants. From this window, sort people to see who's been assigned where by selecting the down arrow next to Name or Room.
Choose the people you want in a room by selecting the checkboxes next to their names.
Select the down arrow next to Assign and choose a room for them.
Repeat the previous steps until everyone in the meeting is assigned to a room. When you're done, select Confirm.
If someone joins the meeting late, select Assign participants again to assign them to a room.
Appoint breakout rooms managers
If you're the meeting organizer, you can delegate presenters to manage the meeting's breakout rooms.
Breakout rooms managers can:
Add and delete rooms
Assign and reassign participants to rooms
Open and close rooms
Join any rooms
Set time limits for room sessions
Send announcements
Recreate rooms
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Select Room settings.
Switch the Assign presenters to manage rooms toggle on.
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.
Choose presenters from the dropdown menu.
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).
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Hover over the room and select More options then Rename room.
Enter the new name and select Rename room.
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.
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Select Rooms settings.
Select Set a time limit and choose a session length.
Select the back button < to save your changes.
Start using the breakout rooms
By default, meeting participants are moved to their assigned rooms as soon as you open them, but you can turn off this setting (see Turn off automatic entry to breakout rooms).
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Do one of the following:
To open all the rooms at the same time, select Open.
To open a single room, hover over the room, select More options, and choose Open room.
You can open and close breakout rooms more than once during a meeting.
Join a breakout room
If you're the meeting organizer or a breakout rooms manager, you can join any of the rooms.
In the meeting controls, select Breakout rooms.
Hover over the room and select More options then Join room.
Leave a breakout room
In the meeting controls, select Return.
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.
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.
Once you join a breakout room, you can also select Chat in the room to chat with the people there.
Close breakout rooms
When you close the breakout rooms, the participants return to the main meeting.
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.