40 Minute Free Meeting

[JillKam]

I have the Basic Free plan.  I want to schedule a free 40 minute meeting, but I am only given the option of scheduling a 30 minute meeting.  How do I schedule the 40 minute session?

[Ray_Harwood]

Welcome to the Zoom Community, @JillKam.

Actually, the duration of the meeting isn't used by Zoom -- it's really only used for your own planning purposes, so the drop-down only allows 15 minute increments.  Your meeting is never "cut off" at the end of the scheduled timeframe.

Schedule your meeting and stay as long as it will let you... which, for a Basic account, is 40 minutes from the time you start the meeting.  Not from the time the meeting was scheduled to start.  So if you arrive at 5 minutes before the hour, your meeting will only last to 35 minutes past the hour -- a total of 40 minutes.

[ljshear]

THANK YOU!! That is the most helpful information I have been able to get after searching their website for over an hour. I get so frustrated when I cannot talk to a live person for support. I have a basic membership so i am entitled to the 40 minutes but the site won’t allow me to “schedule” the 40 minutes… just like the person above was saying. 

[ljshear]

So, what do I do when the “clock” at the top of the screen starts ticking down? In the past, when it gets to “0” we all disappear off the screen after 30 minutes. Will we still disappear?

[Ray_Harwood]

Hi, @ljshear.

With the Basic plan, your meeting will end after 40 minutes. I recommend setting the clock timer to the Meeting Duration mode instead of the Time Remaining mode. With Time Remaining mode, it will count down to the scheduled end time. Even if you modify the duration to 40 minutes (which you can do by manually touching into the duration field when creating the meeting), your meeting might end sooner or later – if you joined your meeting before or after the scheduled start time, it will still end 40 minutes after you joined. (Technically speaking, 40 minutes after anyone joined; if you have the meeting’s “Join before Host” setting enabled, it will end 40 minutes after the first person joins.)

The clock is a small convenience display; it doesn’t really have any affect on your meeting.