The coronavirus outbreak has led to a massive spike in usage for video calling and conferencing apps. Zoom has been at the forefront of this as the service has grown from just 10 million video calls daily in December to over 200 million video calls by March. Despite all the security concerns around it, there’s no stopping the growth of Zoom in this pandemic. If you are using Zoom for holding virtual meetings or classes, check out some of the best keyboard shortcuts for it to become a pro Zoom user.

There’s a lot to like about Zoom. It is ideal for hosting large meetings, offers plenty of useful features like the ability to record meetings and save them to the cloud, virtual backgrounds, and more. You can also join a Zoom meeting without having to first sign up for the service making it the preferred choice for many. If you are new to using Zoom, make sure to check out the best tips and tricks for using it. As for the best keyboard shortcuts for Zoom, find them below.

Windows PC owners note that you will need to press the Alt key instead of the Command key for almost all the shortcuts mentioned below.

The Best Zoom Keyboard Shortcuts

Record a Meeting

Want to quickly record a meeting in Zoom? Instead of fiddling with the settings, simply press the Alt/Command + Shift + R button to start the recording. If you want to start a cloud recording, press the Alt/Command + Shift + C keys.

Start/Stop Video

It is recommended that by default you turn off your camera in Zoom while joining a meeting. This will be useful if you attend multiple video calls a day as you can’t always keep an eye on your background before joining a meeting. Plus, there will also be cases where you someone might come in the background and you would want to quickly stop your Zoom video. In such cases, you can use the Alt/Command + Shift + V shortcut to quickly toggle your video feed. Once you get used to this shortcut, you will find yourself using it pretty frequently.

Push to Talk

As I mentioned in my tips and tricks article for Zoom, one should simply enable the option to have their audio on mute by default. You will always have to unmute yourself before you wish to say something in a video call, but this way, you end up preventing background noise from creeping into an important virtual meeting. Zoom has a handy Push to Talk feature which ensures you won’t have to fiddle around too much trying to unmute yourself every time you want to speak in a meeting. Simply press and hold the spacebar to temporarily unmute yourself. This is one of those shortcuts that every Zoom user who attends multiple video meetings a day should know and get used to.

Screen Sharing

Want to quickly start/stop a screen sharing session in Zoom? Simply press the Shift + Command/Alt + S keys to start or stop a screen sharing session. If you use Zoom to hold online classes or for presentation purposes, you will find this shortcut pretty useful.

Quickly Chat with Someone

If you are in multiple Zoom virtual rooms, your contact list can get pretty crowded. The good thing about Zoom is that it also lets you message your contacts, though the contact list can get crowded in no time. If you rely frequently on Zoom to message your colleagues, you should use the Alt/Command + K shortcut to quickly search for the chat you want to open. Do note that this shortcut will only work when you are in the Chat tab in Zoom.

Join a Meeting

You can quickly enter the details of Zoom meeting that you need to join by pressing the Alt/Command + J keys. A particularly useful shortcut to know if you attend a lot of Zoom meetings on a daily basis. Similarly, to schedule a Zoom meeting, simply press the Command + D keys.

Quickly Invite People to Meetings

Want to quickly invite someone to an ongoing Zoom meeting? Simply press the Alt/Command + I keys to bring up the invite window. From there, you can search for the contact, send them an invite email, or simply copy the invite URL and share it with them directly.

Show Participants Panel

If you tend to hold or attend large meetings in Zoom, it can get a bit difficult to keep a tab on who all are present. Plus, sometimes due to network issues, some people might disconnect from an ongoing meeting. If you want to quickly see who all have joined or are part of a Zoom meeting, you can use the Participants panel for that. The best way to access it is by simply pressing the Alt/Command + U shortcut. You can press the same buttons again to hide the panel.

Raise Hand

Zoom has a Raise Hand feature in which you can raise a virtual hand. This is a handy feature for students attending virtual classes or webinars hosted on Zoom as if they have a doubt, they can simply raise their virtual hand instead of interrupting their professor. To raise a virtual hand, simply press the Alt/Option + Y keys.

Mute Everyone

Not everyone will have the courtesy to ensure that their microphone is on mute when they join a video call. If you are hosting a particularly large video call on Zoom, things can get a bit chaotic with background noise from participants and multiple people speaking at once. In such cases, you should use the Alt/Command + Control + M shortcut to quickly mute everyone except yourself. This shortcut will only work for the person hosting the Zoom meeting and is not available to others.

More Zoom Shortcuts

Want to know more useful Zoom shortcuts? Just head over to Zoom settings -> Keyboard shortcuts where you will find all the shortcuts supported by Zoom. The good thing is that you can even customize the shortcuts as per your liking.

What are some of your favorite and most used keyboard shortcuts for Zoom? Drop a comment and let us know about it!