Enabling specific participants to only be seen by a host or co-host during a meeting.

[Dhalgren]

During regular meetings (usually 60-150 attendees) we hold, all participants are required to have their camera on so that a co-host can continually see them and confirm continued attendance. This means that every participant can see every other participant's camera image. Several attendees at our meetings have expressed, for personal reasons, concerns about every other participant (outside of a host or co-host) being able to see them. Is there a way to configure Zoom so that a particular participant, or several, only has their camera image visible to a host or co-host, and not by others in the meeting? Focus mode seems to provide this option for all participants, but not for selective participants. Spotlighting doesn't solve this issue because it only allows up to 9 participants to be spotlighted. What we are seeking is to selectively "hide" the camera view of several participants from all participants who are not hosts or co-hosts of the meeting. Any help would be appreciated.

[RN]

Hey @Dhalgren, for something like this, our new feature Focus Mode should do the trick! This feature gives the host and co-hosts view of all participants’ videos without other participants seeing each other.

Just take note of the prerequisites and the note:

• Zoom desktop client
  • Windows: 5.7.3 or higher
  • macOS: 5.7.3 or higher

Note: Participants on older client versions are still affected by Focus mode (their videos blanked to others, video and shared content only visible to host), but will not see any notifications regarding Focus mode. Only the host must be on the required desktop client version to initiate Focus mode.

[Dhalgren]

Thanks. While Focus Mode prevents all participants from seeing each other during a meeting (though the host and co-host(s) can see everyone), we are looking for a way to only have a few individuals excluded from group viewing. For example, there would be 100 participants (not including the host or co-host(s)) in the meeting, all of whom would be seen by the host and co-host(s), but we could exclude 3 people so that the other 97 could still see each other but the 3 would only be seen by the host and co-host(s). Is that possible?

[Bort]

Nope, not possible. 

[Dhalgren]

I was afraid that was going to be the answer.

[jimme]

How do I get to Focus Mode?

[Dhalgren]

Rather than explaining it, I recommend going to this link, which explains Focus Mode well. I have a different job and no longer use that functionality, but I think it's still available.