How to Use Zoom Whiteboard in Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms work well for small-group tasks, and a shared whiteboard gives each group a place to sketch, list ideas or solve problems together. This guide shows how to turn the feature on, open a whiteboard inside a breakout room, keep the result, and fix the issues that most often stop groups from drawing together.

Before you start

Zoom Whiteboard and breakout rooms are both online Zoom services. Nothing here runs only on your computer, so every participant needs a working connection and must be signed in to Zoom where the account requires it.

• Update the Zoom desktop or mobile app for everyone who will draw. Older clients may show only the classic in-meeting whiteboard or none at all. Check Zoom's release notes for the minimum version your account supports.
• The meeting host, or an account admin, must enable breakout rooms in the Zoom web portal settings.
• Whiteboard must be enabled for the account or group. Admins can lock this setting, and so can the options for saving or exporting boards.
• Participants need permission to share in the meeting. In many setups, whiteboard sharing inside a breakout room follows the host's screen-sharing rules.
• Find out where whiteboard content is stored and how long it is kept. Cloud whiteboards are saved on Zoom's servers under someone's account. Confirm your organization's retention and sharing rules before groups add sensitive information.

Zoom offers two whiteboard types. The newer Zoom Whiteboard is cloud-based and is opened from the Whiteboards button in the meeting toolbar. The classic whiteboard is opened from the screen-share options. Which one you see depends on your app version and account settings, and the two behave differently when it comes to saving.

Step-by-step instructions

For the host: prepare the meeting

• Sign in to the Zoom web portal and open your settings. Confirm that breakout rooms are turned on. If whiteboard options appear there, confirm those too.
• In the meeting, open the sharing options and set who can share to all participants. Otherwise only the host and co-hosts may be able to start a whiteboard in a room.
• Create the breakout rooms and assign participants, either automatically or manually.
• Before opening the rooms, tell each group who will start the whiteboard. This avoids several competing boards in one room.
• Open the rooms.

For participants: start a whiteboard inside a breakout room

• Join your assigned breakout room.
• For the cloud whiteboard, select Whiteboards in the meeting toolbar. Then create a new board or open an existing one and share it with the room. If the button is hidden, look under the More menu.
• For the classic whiteboard, select Share Screen and choose Whiteboard.
• If the board was created from Whiteboards, others in the room may need to accept an invitation or be granted edit access before they can draw.
• Use the annotation or drawing tools to add text, shapes and sticky notes.
• Before the rooms close, save or export the board as described below.

Sharing a board with the whole meeting afterwards

When the rooms close, everyone returns to the main session and any whiteboard shared inside a breakout room stops being shared. To show a group's work to everyone, the person who owns or saved the board shares it again in the main session. A cloud board can be reopened from Whiteboards. A saved classic whiteboard can be shown as an image or file.

Check the output

• While the room is open, have one participant draw a mark and ask the others whether they see it update. If someone sees the board but cannot draw, they have view-only access.
• For a cloud whiteboard, open the Whiteboards area in the Zoom app or web portal after the meeting. Confirm the board is listed under the expected owner and that the contents are complete.
• For a classic whiteboard, look for the saved image or PDF in the folder your Zoom client uses for local recordings and saved files. Classic whiteboard content that was not saved is not kept after sharing stops.
• If you export a board, open the exported file and check that nothing was cut off. Large boards may need zooming or several exports to be readable.

A whiteboard does not depend on camera permission, the selected camera or video settings, so camera problems do not explain a missing board. Visible quality during the session depends on each participant's connection and screen, not on webcam resolution or frame rate.

Common problems and next steps

The Whiteboards button or Whiteboard option is missing in the breakout room

Check three things in order. First, update the app. Second, ask the host to set sharing to all participants. Third, ask an account admin whether whiteboard is disabled or locked for your group. A participant on an older client or an unsupported platform may see only the classic whiteboard or no option at all.

Participants can see the board but cannot edit it

For cloud whiteboards, the board owner needs to give the room edit access through the board's sharing or permission controls. For the classic whiteboard, other participants draw with annotation tools, which the person sharing can turn off. Ask that person to check whether annotation by others is allowed.

The host cannot see what a group drew

A host who stays in the main session does not see boards shared inside breakout rooms. The host can join a room to look, or ask each group to save the board or share it with the host's account before the rooms close.

The whiteboard disappeared when breakout rooms ended

Classic whiteboard content is lost if nobody saved it. Cloud whiteboards usually stay in the owner's account, so search the owner's Whiteboards list rather than the host's. Next time, announce a few minutes before closing the rooms so groups can save or export. Also allow enough time in the breakout room countdown for this step.

Multiple boards were created in one room

If several people start a whiteboard at the same time, the group can end up split across boards. Agree on a single board and have its owner share it with the room. Keep the others only if they hold work worth saving.