What is Zoom and how does it work? Plus tips and tricks

Zoom is one of the leading video conferencing software apps. It enables you to virtually interact with co-workers when in-person meetings aren’t possible, and it has been hugely successful for social events, too. Make no mistake: Zoom is an essential tool for small-, medium-, and large-sized teams who want to keep in touch and continue their daily workflows with minimal disruption – as well as becoming a firm favourite with individuals, especially around holidays like Thanksgiving in the US and Christmas around the world.

What is Zoom?

Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing service you can use to meet with others virtually – either by video or audio-only or both, all while conducting live chats – and it lets you record those sessions to view later. Over half of Fortune 500 companies reportedly used Zoom in 2019, and during 2020, it hit even greater heights, racking up 227 per cent growth over the year.

When people are talking about Zoom, you’ll usually hear the following phrases: Zoom Meeting and Zoom Room. A Zoom Meeting refers to a video conferencing meeting that’s hosted using Zoom. You can join these meetings via a webcam or phone. Meanwhile, a Zoom Room is the physical hardware setup that lets companies schedule and launch Zoom Meetings from their conference rooms.

Zoom Rooms require an additional subscription on top of a Zoom subscription and are an ideal solution for larger companies.

Here are Zoom’s core features:

1. One-on-one meetings: Host unlimited one-on-one meetings even with the free plan.
2. Group video conferences: Host up to 1000 participants (if you purchase the Enterprise plan). The free plan, however, allows you to host video conferences of up to 40 minutes and up to 100 participants.
3. Screen sharing: Meet one-on-one or with large groups and share your screen with them so they can see what you see.
4. Recording: You can record your meetings or events too.

How does Zoom work?

Choose your plan

Zoom allows one-to-one chat sessions that can grow into group calls, training sessions, webinars for internal and external audiences, and global video meetings with up to 1,000 participants and as many as 49 on-screen videos. The free tier allows unlimited one-on-one meetings but limits group sessions to 40 minutes and 100 participants. Paid plans start at $9.99 per month per host.

Zoom offers four pricing tiers (not including a Zoom Room subscription):

1. Basic: This tier is free. You can hold an unlimited number of meetings. Group meetings with multiple participants are capped at 40 minutes in length, and meetings can’t be recorded.
2. Pro: This tier costs $15.99/£11.99 per month for each meeting host. It allows hosts to create personal meeting IDs for repetitive Zoom Meetings, and it allows meeting recording in the cloud or your device, but it caps group meeting durations at 30 hours, with 5GB cloud storage.
3. Business: This tier costs $19.99/£15.99 monthly and for each meeting host (10 minimum). It lets you brand Zoom meetings with vanity URLs and company branding, and it offers transcripts of Zoom meetings recorded in the cloud and dedicated customer support. It has 30-hour time limits for up to 300 attendees, with 5GB of cloud storage.

The above are all available for personal subscribers, with additional options offered for business:

1. Business Plus: This tier costs $25.00 per month per user, with a minimum of 10 users. It offers 30-hour meetings, 10GB of cloud storage, and up to 300 participants.
2. Enterprise: This tier is meant for businesses with 1,000+ employees, and you’ll need to contact the sales department to determine the price.

How to download Zoom

The desktop app is available for Windows and macOS, while the mobile app is available for Android and iOS. The desktop app offers the best experience. All the apps let you join a meeting without signing in, but also let you sign in using a Zoom account, Google, Facebook, or SSO. From there, you can start a meeting, join a meeting, share your screen in a Zoom Room by entering the meeting ID, start Zoom Meetings, mute/unmute your mic, start/stop the video, invite others to the meeting, change your screen name, do in-meeting chat, and start a cloud recording.

If you’re a desktop user, you can also start a local recording, create polls, broadcast your Facebook live on Facebook, and more. In other words, the desktop app is more fully featured, although, if you’re a free user, you can still get a lot of mileage from the mobile app.

Zoom Outlook plugin

As well as the various other Zoom app downloads, it is also possible to use Zoom in other ways. For example, there’s a Zoom Outlook plugin that’s designed to work directly in your Microsoft Outlook client or as an Add-in for Outlook on the web. This Outlook plug drops a Zoom button right into the standard Outlook toolbar and lets you start or schedule a Zoom meeting with a simple click.

Zoom browser extensions

Another tool for quickly starting or scheduling a Zoom meeting comes in the form of an extension for your favourite browser. There is a Zoom Chrome extension and Zoom Firefox add-on that let you schedule a Zoom meeting via Google Calendar. A simple click on the Zoom button and you can start a meeting or schedule one for later with all the information on the meeting being sent via Google Calendar to make it easy for participants to join.

Using Zoom in your browser

If you don’t have access to any apps – or haven’t installed one – you can run Zoom in a browser. Even if you do have Zoom apps, you can run Zoom in a browser instead. When you click on a Zoom link on a desktop, it will open a quick browser tab that will then launch the app on your device.

You can bypass the app and run it directly in the browser instead if you prefer. You might try this if your app isn’t working, or if it’s out of date or if you’re having login problems.

You have to close the app and return to your browser showing this dialog – and you’ll see the link to join in the browser.

Zoom on your TV

It is actually possible to get Zoom working on your TV so you can have a video call on the big screen. We’ve written a detailed guide on the various ways you can get Zoom on your TV that is worth checking out.

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What’s the difference between paid and free Zoom?

A few differences between the paid and free Zoom plans are worth noting.

Free users

You can download the Zoom app on your computer or phone and join any meeting with a supplied meeting ID. You can disable audio or video before joining. You can create a free Zoom account; from there, you can create a new meeting, schedule one, join a meeting, share a screen, add contacts, and so on.

Paid users

If your system administrator has a Pro, Business, or Enterprise account, you can sign up and download Zoom onto your computer using your work email. You’ll then want to sync Zoom to your calendar to schedule Zoom meetings and invite remote participants to join.

If you’re setting up a Zoom Room, you’ll need a computer to sync and run Zoom Meetings and a tablet for attendees to launch the Zoom Meetings. You’ll also need a mic, camera, and speaker, at least one HDTV monitor to display remote meeting participants, and an HDMI cable to share computer screens on a display, as well as an internet cable for your connection

You’ll also need to download “Zoom Rooms for Conference Room” on the in-room computer and “Zoom Room Controller” for the tablet in the meeting room. You can then sync those rooms to your company’s shared calendar, so employees can see which meeting rooms are available.

Zoom security issues and updates

Early in 2020, concerns were raised about Zoom regarding security and problems with unwanted guests known as Zoombombers.

The company made moves to counter these issues and reassure users about the importance of security and privacy. This includes simple things like removing the meeting ID from the title bar of the call, so if users share screenshots online, the meeting isn’t exposed to future abuse. The company has released many updates to the app to boost the security credentials.

Default security updates

Zoom has been updated with security changes to reassure users. One of these has been the requirement for a password as default for Zoom meetings. This, combined with virtual waiting rooms, ensures that only those people who have been invited to the call are actually allowed in.

Another step is to ensure calls are secure and safe for everyone.

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Zoom security tools

Zoom has made it easy to manage and secure your meetings when they’re happening. There are a range of security tools you can now access with a couple of clicks including the ability to lock the meeting when it has started so no new people can join, remove current participants on the call, muting participants and disabling private chat too.

To access the Zoom security tools, you can simply click on the security button that appears in the window when the call is happening or hover over a participant to interact with them specifically – to remove them from the call for example.

In June 2023, Zoom added more features designed to enhance user privacy including EEA-based Data Storage, a European Support Team, Data Subject Access Requests, a Marketing Preference Center, Audit Log Tracking, and more visable data retention. These, along with the existing tools Zoom had in place make it a farily secure app.

Reporting other participants

It’s now possible to report participants on the call who aren’t welcome or are causing trouble. As well as removing them from the call, you can now send a report to the Zoom Trust and Safety team to handle system misuse. This will help block them from the service in the future and prevent them from interfering with other calls.

To do so, click the security button on the meeting and then click report.

What is OnZoom?

In October 2020, Zoom unveiled the public beta for OnZoom. It is described as an online events platform and marketplace that allows paid Zoom users to create, host, and monetise events such as fitness classes, concerts, stand-up, improv shows, or music lessons.

“We were humbled and inspired by all the amazing ways the world adapted to a literal shutdown of in-person events amid COVID-19. When business owners, entrepreneurs, and organizations of all sizes had to find some way – any way – to stay the course and continue providing services to their customers, many turned to Zoom,” Zoom explained. “OnZoom simplifies that experience.”

Visit onzoom.com to learn more about how OnZoom works.

What are Zoom Apps (aka Zapps)?

In October 2020, Zoom announced Zapps, or apps that both free and paid Zoom users will have access to within the Zoom platform. “Think of Zapps as an app store right where you need it most – in a Zoom meeting, room, chat, webinar, phone call, and even your contacts directory,” Zoom announced while explaining that Zapps can “improve productivity and help create more engaging experiences.” Since then, Zoom has mostly dropped the Zapps branding, insteading simply going with Zoom Apps.

Launch partners included Atlassian, Asana, Box, Dropbox, Slack, Wrike, Coursera, Kahoot!, Kaltura, HubSpot, Chorus, Gong, Cameo, Exer, Slido, Lucidspark, Miro, Mural, ServiceNow, and PagerDuty. For example, you can use the Dropbox Zoom App to share the document you’ve been working on, or you can put up a poll using the Slido Zoom App, or you can pull up the Asana Zapp and do updates on team projects.

Visit zoom.com/en/zoom-apps/ to watch demo video and go to Zoom’s app marketplace to get apps designed to enchance Zoom.

What is Zoom Intelligent Director?

In June 2023, Zoom introduced a new feature designed to help remote and in-office workers meet more efficiently. Hybrid meetings in a Zoom Room can now take advantage of the power of AI and multiple cameras to achieve the best angle of participants in the physical room. This will allow remote participants to see each person clearly and not feel stuck on the outside because they’re not in the office.

The feature is meant for medium- to large-sized rooms, so it’s perfect for large companies with employees who can’t make their way into the office for whatever reason.

What is Zoom Scheduler?

Much like Google Hangouts, Zoom has a new tool called Scheduler that lets users place meetings on a calendar when both parties are available. Meeting hosts can create windows of availability, allowing potential clients to choose a time that works for them. It also allows users to choose recurring availability or custom availability for one-off meetings, schedule one-on-one meetings or one-to-many group meetings, specify how many people can attend any available slot, and more. It’s a premium add-on, going for $5.99 per month, but for power Zoom users, it’s worth getting.

What is Zoom AI Companion?

Zoom introduced another AI feature in August 2023 called Zoom AI Companion. It uses generative AI (like the popular Chat GPT service) to help improve collaboration and productivity from within its apps. It’s integrated in all parts of Zoom, including Meetings, Team Chat, Phone, Email, and Whiteboard. It can speed up rewatching meetings by generating summaries, and it will let participants catch up on what they missed without annoying other people in the group

We have a full write-up on Zoom’s AI Companion that’ll help explain it in more depth, and it’s constantly evolving and being rolled into more parts of Zoom.

Zoom tips and tricks

Create recurring meetings

Zoom lets you create recurring meetings. You can set the call settings you want once and have them be in there every time you plan to meet, and you can join calls using the same URL each time. In the Zoom mobile app, log in, click schedule, tap the Repeat option, and select a recurrence. For more info on scheduling meetings in general and all of the meeting settings, see Zoom’s FAQ on scheduling meetings.

How to record Zoom calls as a video

Zoom lets you record calls as videos. You do need permission to do so, though. The meeting host will have to enable recordings in settings. It’s worth checking your account settings to ensure recording is enabled before you start.

1. Log into your Zoom account.
2. Click to view Account Settings/Meeting settings.
3. Navigate to the Recording tab and click to enable video recording.

It’s worth noting that Zoom admins can activate recording for everyone, for users or groups. There’s more guidance on recording settings here. In order to record a Zoom meeting, you must choose whether to use the local or cloud option. Local means you store the video file yourself on your computer or in another storage area. With Cloud, which is for paid subscribers only, Zoom stores the video for you in its cloud storage. But, to record videos, you need Zoom on macOS, Windows, or Linux. When you record a meeting and choose Record to the Cloud, the video, audio, and chat text is recorded in the Zoom cloud.

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When the Zoom call begins, you should see an option to record on the bottom of the screen. Clicking that then lets you record locally or in the cloud. If you don’t see the option to record, check your settings in the web app (under My Meeting Settings) or have your account admin enable it. The recording files can be downloaded to a computer or streamed from a browser.

During the meeting, you can also see which participants are recording the meeting, and those on the meeting will also be told when the meeting is being recorded. When the call is over Zoom will automatically convert the recording into a usable MP4 video file.

Recording Zoom meetings on mobile

It is possible to record Zoom meetings and calls on mobile, too. However, this is done via cloud recordings, so you need a paid Zoom membership in order to use this feature. It’s also worth noting that cloud storage is limited, so be careful how many meetings you record while using the mobile app.

To record a Zoom call on mobile, follow these steps:

1. Open the Zoom app on your mobile.
2. Click to join or start a meeting.
3. Click the three-dot menu on the bottom right of the screen.
4. Click “Record to the cloud” or “record”.
5. You’ll then see a recording icon and the ability to pause or stop recording.
6. Once the call is over, you’ll find the recording in the “My Recordings” section of the Zoom site.

Where does Zoom save recordings?

When you’re recording locally, Zoom call recordings are saved in the Zoom folder on your PC or Mac. These can be found at these locations:

• PC: C:\Users\User Name\Documents\Zoom
• Mac: /Users/User Name/Documents/Zoom

You can easily access Zoom recordings by opening the Zoom app and navigating to meetings. Once there, you’ll see a “recorded” tab where you can choose the meeting you need and then either play the recording or open it.

For cloud storage of your Zoom meeting recordings, log in to your account and navigate to the My Recordings page.

Removing background noise from your Zoom calls

Zoom has introduced settings that allow you to adjust the audio on your call and remove unnecessary and unwanted background noise.

To activate this, click on settings, then find the audio options. You’ll see a drop-down menu with “suppress background noise.”

There are varying levels of suppression you can add here. The highest will remove as much as possible, reducing issues with fan noises and dogs barking, while the lower levels will still let you play background music on a chilled-out casual call with friends. If the built-in noise removal isn’t enough, there are other options available.

How to improve your microphone quality with AI

If you don’t have a perfectly peaceful office to work from, then you might find things are a bit noisy and less than professional for your calls. Zoom offers background noise suppression in the app or you can use an external solution, such as Krisp. This will give you 120 minutes a month of really solid noise cancellation on Zoom – or indeed any audio application using a microphone. Like the Nvidia solution above, you just have to install the Krisp app, then select Krisp as your microphone in the app settings. You’ll then have clear audio. We’ve written a detailed guide on how to use Krisp right here.

Zoom virtual backgrounds

If you want to jazz things up a bit or don’t want other people on the Zoom call seeing the awful mess of your home, then there’s good news as Zoom offers virtual backgrounds. These are backdrops for your calls that include things like space, cityscapes, and ocean-side views. With Zoom virtual backgrounds, you can also upload an image of anything you want to customise your background. It’s available for both iPhone and desktops.

How to use virtual backgrounds on a desktop

It’s fairly easy to get started with Zoom virtual backgrounds. On a Mac or PC, for instance, just open up your Zoom client, click on the “Setup” icon on the corner, and select “Virtual Background” in the side menu. Zoom provides a few virtual backgrounds. Click on the one you’d like to use. If you would like your own background, click on the plus sign above and to the left of the sample backgrounds, choose an image from your computer, and add it.

You can also add a virtual background during a meeting. In your Zoom client, click on the arrow next to the video symbol on the left, select “Choose a virtual background…”, and you will see the same Virtual Background page. The company recommends using a green screen and a good webcam to get the best results, but it is possible to use a virtual background without a green screen too.

How to use virtual backgrounds on the mobile app

You can also use Zoom virtual backgrounds on the app too. Login to your account and join a meeting via your phone. Then click the three dots at the bottom of the screen and click the “more” menu. Then click “virtual background” and choose the background you want to use.

Add filters to your Zoom calls

As well as virtual backgrounds, it’s possible to jazz up your Zoom calls by using filters. These come in two forms and can be found in the same background settings as virtual backgrounds.

You can choose either add simple colour shades to your camera (sepia, black and white, and such) or select from several Snapchat-eque filters to add cartoon stylings to your camera. These might not be ideal for business calls, but should make things more entertaining with friends and family.

Touch up my appearance

As well as virtual backgrounds, Zoom offers the ability to improve your looks when you’re on a call. There’s a feature called “Touch Up My Appearance,” which is useful if you’ve not had your daily caffeine fix or are struggling with life in the home office.

Touch Up My Appearance uses a filter to smooth fine lines subtly, and it’s meant to look very natural. To use Touch Up My Appearance, go to Settings, and under the Video tab, check the box next to Touch up.

Recording transcripts

As well as recording Zoom meetings, you can also automatically transcribe the audio of a meeting that you record to the cloud. And, as the meeting host, you can edit your transcript, scan the transcript text for keywords to access the video at that moment, and share the recording.

To enable the Audio Transcript feature for your own use, sign into the Zoom web portal and navigate to My Meeting Settings, then go to the Cloud recording option on the Recording tab, and verify that the setting is enabled. Choose Turn On, if need be. If the option is greyed out, it has been locked at either the Group or Account level, and you will need to contact your Zoom admin.

49-person gallery view

With gallery view, you see up to 49 meeting participants at once, rather than the default 25, depending on your device. With the Zoom mobile app on Android and iOS, you can start or join a meeting. By default, the Zoom mobile app displays the active speaker view. If one or more participants join the meeting, you will see a video thumbnail in the bottom-right corner. You can view up to four participants’ videos at the same time.

If you want to view 49 people, you will need the Zoom desktop client for macOS or Windows. Once you have the desktop app installed on your computer, you must go to Settings and click Video to display the video settings page. Then, enable the option “Display up to 49 participants per screen in Gallery View”.

Zoom screen sharing and using pause share

Did you know that you can not only share your screen (smartphone and desktop) but also pause your screen sharing? Simply press Pause Share when you don’t want your meeting participants to watch you mess around your presentation slides. Learn more here.

Share and annotate on mobile

You can share files directly from your phone while in the meeting and use the whiteboarding feature on your phone by writing comments with your finger. To annotate while viewing someone else’s shared screen, select View Options from the top of the Zoom window and then choose Annotate. A toolbar will appear with all your options for annotating – such as text, draw, arrow, and so on.

How to rearrange tiles in Gallery view

If you’re in Gallery view, you can see all the participants on the call at the same time. You also have the option to rearrange these, so if there are key people you always want to be looking at, you can just drag and drop to rearrange the order they are shown.

Zoom keyboard shortcuts

It’s possible to use various shortcut keys during Zoom meetings to access features or change settings easily. These include a multitude of things but our favourites are:

• Alt+A or Command(⌘)+Shift+A: Mute/unmute audio
• Alt+M or Command(⌘)+Control+M: Mute/unmute audio for everyone except the host
• Alt+S or Command(⌘)+Control+S: Start screen sharing
• Alt+R or Command(⌘)+Shift+R: Start/stop local recording
• Alt+C or Command(⌘)+Shift+C: Start/stop cloud recording
• Alt+P or Command(⌘)+Shift+P: Pause or resume recording
• Alt+F1 or Command(⌘)+Shift+W: Switch to active speaker view in video meeting

How to share YouTube videos in Zoom

That’s right, Zoom will let you share a wide range of content on your presentation, including YouTube videos. This is a bit of a sneaky option, because all you have to do is have the video that you want to share open in your browser. Then, when you want to share that, you just use the share screen option and pick the browser from the options. Note: you’ll also need to tick the “share computer sound” option in that box to ensure that everyone on the call can hear the YouTube video and see it. You can find a more detailed guide right here.