This article is based on a video where I show how you can personalize your waiting room on Zoom.
Benefits
What are the benefits of customizing your waiting room in Zoom?
It lets you:
- Stand out
- Look more professional
- Share the rules and procedures for your meeting.
Steps
Now, as you know, when you host a Zoom meeting, when you invite people in, your settings could direct them first into a waiting room, allowing you as the host to decide whether you want to allow them to join the meeting.

So, to turn on the waiting room, go to Zoom.us> Preferences> General. View>More settings.


This is where Waiting Room is turned on and where you can customize your waiting room.
You can set up your own logo or even add a design in gif format. There is an explanation of the dimensions that you need to use. Next, you can change your welcome message.

You can add a description for students entering the waiting room. (For example the rules of your class.)

You want to make this message short, but welcoming, because people won’t be in the waiting room for too long (hopefully).
So, what does that look like, when somebody joins the meeting with my new waiting room settings with me starting a meeting as the host.
This then is the message that students get when they join my class/ meeting as the host of the meeting.
Now, the second thing that you can do, instead of admitting the guest, is that you as the host can send a brief message, and here’s how you do that.
And here’s how that will look on the mobile phone. Now, thirdly, is that the person receiving the message can view the chat but can’t respond. You might, as the host, admit the person to the meeting.
The fourth function teachers/ hosts must know about is that you can send your guest back into the waiting room, for example, if a student misbehaves or in any rowdy meeting of some sort.
