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larasuddes
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August 20, 2026
Question

Unable to Move “Not Joined” Participant to Main Room

  • August 20, 2026
  • 1 reply
  • 21 views

I regularly host online teaching sessions on Zoom and frequently use breakout rooms so that students can work in smaller groups.

My breakout room settings are configured so that participants automatically join their assigned breakout rooms when I open the rooms. Most of the time, this works as expected.

Occasionally, however, a participant does not join the assigned breakout room. On my Breakout Rooms panel, the participant's status then shows as “Not Joined”. The participant remains in the Main Room and is able to speak to me and ask for assistance in joining the assigned breakout room.

This creates a problem.

When I click on the name of a participant whose status is “Not Joined”, Zoom displays the “Move to” option, but only allows me to move that participant to one of the other breakout rooms. There is no option to move the participant to the Main Room.

By comparison, when I click on a participant who has successfully joined a breakout room (shown with the green status indicator), the “Move to” option allows me to move that participant either to the Main Room or to any of the other breakout rooms.

This raises two related questions:

  1. Why is the Main Room not available as a “Move to” option for a participant whose status is “Not Joined”, particularly when that participant appears already to be in the Main Room?
  2. Could Zoom provide a way for the host to reset or reassign a “Not Joined” participant so that the participant can be sent successfully to the originally assigned breakout room?

My current workaround is to move the “Not Joined” participant temporarily to a different breakout room. Once the participant has successfully joined that room, I can then move the participant back to the originally assigned breakout room.

Although this workaround works, it is unnecessarily cumbersome during a live teaching session and can be disruptive when I am managing several breakout rooms simultaneously.

It would be much more convenient if the host could either:

  • move or reset the “Not Joined” participant to the Main Room and then send the participant to the originally assigned breakout room; or
  • directly resend the participant to the breakout room to which they are already assigned.

I would appreciate clarification on whether the current behaviour is intentional or a defect. If it is intentional, I suggest that the breakout room controls be enhanced to provide hosts with a simpler way of dealing with participants whose status remains “Not Joined”.

    1 reply

    jdott16
    Community Champion | Employee
    jdott16
    Community Champion | Employee
    August 20, 2026

    Hello ​@larasuddes 

    The first thing I would verify is that users are on the most updated version of Zoom as these issues could occur due to older versions. 

    The second thing I would note is that if you have opened all the rooms and a user is still in the main room, when you see them as Not Joined, and the option to Move To only shows other breakout rooms, that makes perfect sense as they are already in the Main Room. You would not have a user who has not joined a breakout room already in the main room with an option to move them to the main room.

    You are correct that if a participant is already in a breakout room, the move to option would then show the main room, but if a participant has not joined a breakout room and are still in the main room, an option to move them to the main room will not be present.

    The last thing I would note is based off your comment: “my breakout room settings are configured so that participants automatically join their assigned breakout rooms when I open the rooms” you appear to be utilizing the Pre-Assigned Breakout Room option. More on the requirements for this feature are here: https://support.zoom.com/hc/en/article?id=zm_kb&sysparm_article=KB0061353 I bring this up because the behavior you are indicating points to users not signed into their Zoom accounts which would leave them in the main session and not apply the pre-assigned rooms. For pre-assignment to work, users MUST be signed into their Zoom account that you preassigned prior to the meeting. If a user is not signed into their Zoom account and you open the breakout rooms, then the experience you are having is by design as users will not be put into a preassigned room if they are not signed into their Zoom account. 

    From the above article:

    Note: When joining a meeting with pre-assignments, participants need to be signed in to the Zoom account associated with the email address used for pre-assignments for the pre-assignment to be applied. If they are not signed in or signed in with a different account, the pre-assignment will not be applied to them. 

    I would confirm that users are signed into their Zoom accounts and are on the most updated version of Zoom as that should resolve this issue. I would also confirm that all users are joined into the meeting prior to opening the breakout rooms as this too can cause users to be in the main room instead of being pushed into a breakout room when they open. 

    I hope this helps and if this answers your question please make sure to mark this as a solution.

     

    Thank you,

    Jake

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