Google Meet hosts can auto-move breakout room participants back to main meeting

Introduced in 2020, breakout rooms allow meeting hosts and co-hosts to split larger meetings into smaller groups for discussion or group work during video calls. Once in a breakout room, participants can speak to or send chat messages to other participants.

"We're introducing several improvements for breakout rooms in Google Meet. We've heard from our customers that they need more controls to easily and effectively manage breakout rooms," Google wrote in a blog post on Tuesday.

Now, breakout room participants will see a banner with a countdown indicating when they'll be moved back to the main meeting room. Participants will have 30 seconds to finish their breakout room discussion and rejoin the main room.

In addition, when participants are automatically moved back into the main meeting room, their cameras and microphones will be turned off. They can re-enable them once they're ready.

These improvements will be available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Nonprofits and Education Plus as well as G Suite Business customers. The feature is also expected to be available for the Teaching and Learning upgrade in April 2022.

Google noted that these improvements will not be available to Google Workspace Business Starter and Education Fundamentals, as well as G Suite Basic customers.