Hosting a Zoom Meeting with a large audience? Want to have a private moment with core members of the meeting before everyone else joins meeting? Well, luckily for you, Zoom does offer a way to lock and unlock meetings.

If you are the host or the co-host, you can lock a Zoom meeting. After all the core members have joined the meeting, click the ‘Manage Participants’ option at the bottom of the Zoom Meeting window.

A ‘Participants’ panel will open on the right side of the Zoom Meeting window with a list of all participants in the meeting. Click the ‘More’ button on the bottom right corner of the ‘Participants’ panel.

Select ‘Lock Meeting’ from the available options in the ‘More’ menu.

A confirmation dialogue will show on the screen to make sure that you understand what happens when you lock a meeting. Click the ‘Yes’ button to confirm.

Once a meeting is locked, no new attendees can join. Even people to whom invitations have been sent won’t be able to join the meeting once it’s locked.

When you’re done with the purpose of the lockdown of the meeting, unlock it so the invitees can join.

To unlock a Zoom Meeting, click the ‘More’ button again from the ‘Participants’ panel on the right of the Zoom Meeting window, and select the ‘Unlock Meeting’ option.

Then, click ‘Yes’ on the confirmation dialogue to allow attendees to join the meeting.

Temporarily locking a Zoom meeting gives you time to prepare, and communicate with the core members of the meeting before all attendees join. Use it to your advantage whenever needed.