How to Group Chat on Zoom by Creating a Channel

Zoom Cloud meetings have become a widely used platform for communicating during this lockdown period, owing to the COVID-19 Pandemic. People from all walks of life have only the digital mode to stay in touch and in business.

However, video meetings isn’t the only way you could use Zoom to connect and work with remote teams. Zoom Chat is just as powerful. You can chat 1:1 or in groups on Zoom to communicate efficiently with your team. For a group chat on Zoom, all you need to to do is create and set up a channel.

‘Channels’ in the Zoom app allows you to do a host of things with your remote team. You can create private and public groups, send group chats, share files or screen captures, images and start a group meeting with or without the video with all team members in a channel with a single click.

Sounds interesting, isnt it? Let us show you how it’s done.

How to Create a Channel on Zoom

To create a channel on Zoom, click on the ‘contacts’ icon on the launch page of the app. The page will navigate to another window with two options, ‘contact’ and ‘channels’.

Select the ‘Channels’ tab on this Contacts screen on Zoom.

To create a channel, click on the ‘+ plus’ icon next to the Channels tab.

Then, select the ‘Create a Channel’ option from the menu that shows.

A pop-up box will show on the screen where you’ll have to provide the following details for the Channel you’re creating.

Channel Name: Enter a name for the channel. It could be your team’s or maybe the project’s name your team is working on.
Invite members: Start typing names to search and select the people you wish to invite to the channel. You can only add people from your contacts list on Zoom.
Privacy settings: You can opt for your chat group to be public or private.
- Private: Only people who are invited can join your channel.
- Public: Anyone in your organisation can join the channel.

Once you’ve configured the channel, click on the ‘Create a Channel’ button at the bottom of the window.

How To Group Chat on Zoom

Once we’ve got a channel for your team set in Zoom, you can group chat with them by going to the Chat tab. Click on ‘Chat’ in the Zoom app header.

On the Zoom Chat window, select the channel you created in the previous steps from the left-hand side of the Chat window.

Once it’s open, you can go about using the channel to group chat with your team.

Zoom Group Chat Tips & Tricks

Below are some quick tips to help you make the most out of group chatting in a channel in Zoom.

Instant video meeting with everyone

Right-click on the Channel name in the sidebar on Zoom Chat window and you’ll see options to ‘Meet with Video’ and ‘Meet without Video’.

Select either of the options to quickly and instantly launch a zoom cloud meeting with all members of the channel.

Star the Channel Group Chat

Star the channel so it’s always easily accessible from the ‘Starred’ section in sidebar on Chat.

Add new members to the Channel

Select the ‘Invite Others’ option from the right-click menu to add new members to the channel.

Change Channel / Group Chat Name or Type

At any point, if you want to change the name of your Channel or decide to make it public for anyone in the organization to join. You can use the ‘Edit channel’ option from the right-click menu.

See a list of all members in the Channel and who is online

To see a list of all members in the channel and who is online and available to chat, click on the little ‘Info’ icon on the top-right corner next to the channel name in chat area.

Then, click on ‘Members’ option from the ‘About this channel’ sidebar to see a list of all members in the Channel and who are online.

Find all shared images, files and starred messages in the Group chat

From the channel chat info screen, you can also access all shared media like images and files and have quick access to all starred messages within the group chat.