Always allow us to rearrange the screen

Hi bhs67,

Thank you for sharing this thoughtful feedback — it’s a great example of how meeting layout and participant placement can make a real difference in engagement, especially for Toastmasters and other presentation-focused groups.

Currently, Zoom allows you to rearrange participant video tiles manually in Gallery View by clicking and dragging them into your preferred order. However, certain actions — such as someone raising their hand, joining/leaving the meeting, or switching views — can temporarily reset that custom arrangement.

Your suggestion to maintain a fixed custom layout even when participants raise their hands or other events occur is excellent and has been shared by other users who host interactive sessions. I recommend submitting this as a feature request through the Zoom Feedback Form (found at zoom.us/feed). This ensures your idea is reviewed directly by our product team for potential inclusion in future updates.

In the meantime, one workaround is to use “Follow Host’s Video Order” (available for meeting hosts) so that everyone sees the same participant arrangement — helpful when you want the speaker’s view to match the audience’s layout.

Thank you again for taking the time to explain how this impacts your meetings. Feedback like yours helps us continue improving the experience for presenters and audiences alike.

It would be nice if there were a direct link, that does not have these restrictions!  Thanks!