Zoom’s private message feature works just fine. If your meeting host has allowed you to send messages privately in the Zoom meeting, your host or any other participant can’t view those private chats. However, there is a loophole through which you might accidentally share your own private chats with someone else without realizing it.

What is the loophole?

Schools and Colleges are using Zoom regularly since Covid-19 became a reality and classrooms were thus transferred to video chat rooms to maintain social distancing. While having lectures or discussions in this new kind of classroom, we often find the need to record the lectures and also share them with peers if necessary. It’s all very conducive until we record a meeting where we are also conversing with a fellow participant on a private chat. In such a case, all your private chats will also be visible to the person you share your recorded meeting with.

So Are Your Private Chats Visible To Your Host?

Technically no. Your host/teacher or any other participant in your online classroom can’t see your private chats with a fellow student on Zoom.

You can chat with anyone unless you want to record that meeting and share it with others. When you or the other participant is recording, it is advised to not chat privately in the meeting.

In case you end up sharing a recording where you chatted privately, it’ll show in the recording labeled as ‘Privately’ chat.

What is the alternative?

If you want to chat separately while recording a meeting or lecture on Zoom, you can always opt for calling or even chatting privately with your classmate on other applications like Whatsapp or Facebook Messenger. This way, you can enjoy the classroom banter remotely without missing out on the virtual notes.