Zoom at UMass Amherst is already configured to improve security and reduce the risk of disruptions.
These additional recommended settings can help further protect your online meetings & class sessions - but in some cases may make Zoom harder to use.
This page includes all of our additional recommended settings, organized by where to find them in the Zoom settings page.
Try them out and see what works for you.
Click to expand a category.
Recommended setting: Enable
When participants join a meeting, place them in a waiting room and require the host to admit them individually. Enabling the waiting room automatically disables the setting for allowing participants to join before host.
Recommended setting: Enable
A password will be generated when scheduling a meeting and participants require the password to join the meeting. The Personal Meeting ID (PMI) meetings are not included.
Recommended setting: Enable
A random password will be generated when starting an instant meeting.
Recommended setting: Enable
Defaults to a requiring a password for PMI.
Recommended setting: Enable
Meeting password will be encrypted and included in the invite link to allow participants to join with just one click without having to enter the password.
Recommended setting: Enable
The participants need to authenticate prior to joining the meetings, hosts can choose one of the authentication methods when scheduling a meeting.
Recommended setting: Enable
The participants need to authenticate prior to joining meetings from web client.
Recommended setting: Enable
Start meetings with host video on
Recommended setting: Disable
Don't allow participants to join the meeting before the host arrives.
Recommended setting: Enable
A Personal Meeting ID (PMI) is a 9 to 11 digit number that is assigned to your account. You can visit Personal Meeting Room to change your personal meeting settings.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option makes Zoom automatically use your personal meeting ID as the ID for all meetings you schedule. This means all of your meetings will be the same room by default, and anyone with the ID can pop into them. We recommend disabling this option.
Recommended setting: Disable
Automatically mute all participants when they join the meeting. The host controls whether participants can unmute themselves.
Recommended setting: Disable
Advanced settings: Prevent participants from saving chat
Enabling chat allows meeting participants to send a message visible to all participants. While this may be useful in some situations, it requires additional moderation efforts on the host's part. Additionally, Zoom chat is not the most accessible way to share information.
Recommended setting: Disable
Private chat allows meeting participants to send a private 1:1 message to another participant - without the host or other moderators knowing.
Recommended setting: Enable
Automatically save all in-meeting chats so that hosts do not need to manually save the text of the chat after the meeting starts.
Recommended setting: Enable
You can choose to play the sound for everyone or host and co-hosts only (recommended). You can also choose to ask users attending by phone to record their voice as the notification.
Recommended setting: Disable
With file transfer enabled, hosts and participants can send any files (including potentially malicious ones) through the in-meeting chat.
You can also choose to only allow specific file types.
Recommended setting: Enable
Advanced settings:
Allows host and participants to share their screen or content during meetings. Allowing only the host to share screen can reduce the moderation efforts required. This setting can be changed during a meeting.
Recommended setting: Enable
Disable desktop or screen share in a meeting and only allow sharing of selected applications.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option allows host and participants to use annotation tools to add information to shared screen. Disabling this may reduce the moderation effort required.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option allows host and participants to draw on a shared whiteboard during a meeting.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option allows previously removed meeting participants and webinar panelists to rejoin the meeting.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option allows meeting participants and webinar panelists to rename themselves.
Recommended setting: Enable
All participant profile pictures will be hidden and only the names of participants will be displayed on the video screen. Participants will not be able to update their profile pictures in the meeting.
Recommended setting: Disable
Enabling this option allows hosts and participants to customize their background to keep your environment private from others in a meeting. However, this allows participants to set any image as their background, so disabling this option may reduce the moderation effort required.
Recommended setting: Enable
Participants from UMass Amherst can see when a guest from outside the institution is in the meeting/webinar. The Participants list indicates which attendees are guests. The guests themselves do not see that they are listed as guests.
Recommended setting: Enable
Enable this option to hide potentially sensitive information while screen sharing in Zoom on iOS. This snapshot display as the preview screen in the iOS task switcher when multiple apps are open.