The chat feature on Zoom opens up a realm of endless possibilities to communicate with people. Whether you use Zoom for work or school, it offers a single, quick way to connect with the other person so all your communication can occur in a single place.

You can easily chat with anyone who has a Zoom account, but to do so, they should be added as your contacts on Zoom first. When you add someone as your contact, you essentially send them an invite to connect with you on Zoom to chat and meet.

Invite Someone to Chat on Zoom

Open the Zoom desktop client and go to the ‘Contacts’ tab from the top of the screen.

Then, click on the ‘+’ button on the left panel and select ‘Add a contact’ from the pop-up menu to create a new contact.

Enter the email address of the person you want to add as a contact and click on ‘Add contact’.

You will receive a confirmation message that your invitation has been sent. Click on ‘OK’ and wait for the other person to accept your invitation.

If they accept it, you can start a chat with them. If the person does not have a Zoom account, they will receive an invitation email to create a Zoom account. They can accept your invitation to connect by creating an account from the invitation link in the email.

Chat With Your Contacts on Zoom

Now that you have added people as your Contacts on Zoom, chatting with them is going to be breezy. From the Zoom Desktop client, go to the ‘Chat’ tab.

On the panel on left, click on the ‘+’ icon next to the ‘Recent’ option.

Then from the context menu that appear, select the ‘New Chat’ option.

The ‘New Chat’ screen will open. Type the contact name you want to start the chat with, or multiple names if you want to create a group in the ‘To’ section. Then proceed and type the message and send it. Zoom Chat also lets you send files or screenshots in a chat.

If you have had a had chat with a contact previously, there won’t be any hassle in sending them a message. They will be under the ‘Recent’ chats on the left panel. Click on the contact name to open the chat screen and start the conversation.

In-Meeting Chat on Zoom

You can also chat with meeting participants while in a meeting. In-Meeting chat allows you to chat with all meeting participants publicly as well as have a private chat with any individuals. The in-meeting chat can be accessed during the screen-share session too.

Note: The In-Meeting chat will not be available if the meeting host has disabled the chat, or put restrictions on who can chat with whom.

During the meeting, click on the ‘Chat’ option on the call toolbar to open the chat screen.

The Chat screen will open on the right of your screen. By default, the recipient will be everyone in the meeting. To chat with a meeting participant privately, click on the drop-down menu next to the ‘To’ option and select the people you want to chat with. Private chats are not visible to the host.

The In-Meeting chat is also not saved by default but you can choose to do so. To save the meeting chat, click on the ‘More’ option (three dots) on the right.

Select the ‘Save chat’ option from the menu that pops up. The chat will be saved on your computer as a text file.

If you are the meeting host, you can also specify the chatting restrictions for the meeting. Click on the ‘More’ option (three dots) to view the context menu. The options will be under the ‘Participant Can Chat With’ section on the menu. Select ‘No One’ to disable the In-Meeting chat entirely. Or you can also put restrictions by selecting one of the options from ‘Host Only’, ‘Everyone Publicly’, or ‘Everyone Publicly and Privately’.

Zoom is not just a video meeting platform but a complete communications package where you can also chat with your Zoom contacts in either 1:1 chats or group chats. The In-Meeting feature also allows users to chat while in a meeting. So whether you want to send links, files, or just plain old greetings, you can do it with the Zoom chat in and outside of the meeting.