While video conferencing apps have definitely brought people together and have helped mimic working conditions, they lack the personal interactions that stem from physical meetings, like how do you catch the host’s attention when you are on a call with 50 other people.
What is Raise Hand on Zoom
Zoom has an interesting way of allowing users to interact with the host of the meeting by providing nonverbal feedback. One of these feedback options allows participants to raise their hand in a meeting, while simultaneously alerting the host. This way, you can request to speak up or share your concerns during a meeting if you have been muted by the host.
At the time, besides Zoom, only Microsoft Teams allows users to use the ‘raise hand’ feature during meetings. Google is expected to roll out a Hand raising feature for its Meet users in a future release giving participants in a meeting a chance to speak upon raising their hand.
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How to Raise Hand on Windows PC and Mac
If you happen to be attending a Zoom Meeting from your Windows PC or Macbook, follow this guide to learn how to provide nonverbal feedback to the host by raising your hand.
Step 1: Launch Zoom and join a meeting as a participant (not a host).
Step 2: Click the ‘Participants’ button from the meeting controls at the bottom of the screen. This brings up several options to choose from to provide nonverbal feedback.
Step 3: Select the ‘Raise Hand’ option inside the Participants panel from the right-hand side of the screen.
There’s a keyboard shortcut! Alternatively, you can use keyboard shortcuts to Raise your hand on Windows and Mac. Press the “Alt + Y” key on either of the systems to toggle Raise Hand option ON or OFF.
The Raise Hand button will only be visible if you’re not a current host of the meeting. If you had previously left a meeting and the current host hasn’t re-assigned you back as the host, you can access the Raise hand button inside your Participants panel.
Note: Zoom allows only one type of nonverbal feedback to be active at a time.
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How to Raise Hand on Android and iPhone
If you are using the mobile version of the Zoom app, follow this guide to learn how to provide nonverbal feedback to the host by raising your hand.
Step 1: Launch the Zoom app and join a meeting as a participant and not a host.
Step 2: To raise your hand to speak up, tap on the ‘More’ button from the meeting controls at the bottom right corner of the screen and then select the ‘Raise Hand’ option from the popup menu.
The meeting host will now be notified that you raised on your hand, regardless of the device they’re using Zoom on.
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How to Raise Hand on a Phone call
Zoom allows users to dial into meetings directly from a phone, without the use of an application. In such cases, if the participant wishes to raise their hand while in a meeting on a phone, they must dial *9 on their phone’s dial pad.
To lower their hand, the participant must once again dial *9 in the phone’s dial pad.
Where is the Raise Hand icon
When a participant has raised their hand in a meeting, a small hand icon appears next to their name. Zoom lists the participants in the order in which their hands were raised.
When checking on your PC, you can see whether a participant has their hand raised by clicking on the ‘Participants’ tab at the bottom of the screen. This will show a list of participants currently on the call. In this list, you will see all the participants who have raised their hands.
On your phone (Android or iOS), if you’re checking whether anyone or yourself raised your hand during a meeting, tap on the ‘Participants’ tab from the bottom of your screen. In the next screen, check for a blue hand icon adjacent to a participant’s name on this list. When such an icon appears, it means that the user has raised their hand to speak up.
Raise Hand option missing?
There can be two reasons for a user not being able to see the Raise hand icon.
- When in fullscreen mode, Zoom minimizes the bottom toolbar to create an immersive experience. If you don’t see the bottom toolbar while in a meeting, here’s what you can do:
- On mobile devices, simply tap the screen of your Zoom meeting and the toolbar will appear. Now you can select the ‘Participants’ tab and select ‘Raise hand’.
- On PC, simply move your mouse on the Zoom meeting screen to reveal the toolbar. You can now click on the ‘Participants’ tab and then click ‘Raise hand’.
- If the host has disabled nonverbal feedback for the meeting, the participants will not see the option to ‘Raise Hand’ or any other feedback. Ask the meeting’s host to enable Nonverbal feedback under his Zoom settings on the web to enable Raise Hand feature.
How to enable Nonverbal feedback in a meeting
Zoom allows participants to express themselves without audio or video through Nonverbal feedback features. Nonverbal feedback is available in the form of buttons inside the Participants panel and one of them is the ‘Raise hand’ feature. Thus, it’s important that you (as a host) enable Nonverbal feedback to allow participants to raise their hands during the meeting.
Note: Only the host can enable or disable Nonverbal Feedback in a meeting.
To enable Nonverbal feedback in a meeting, follow the steps below:
Step 1: Visit Zoom.us and sign in with your username and password.
Step 2: Click on the ‘My Account’ tab in the top right corner and then select ‘Settings’ (under ‘Personal’ tab).
Step 3: In the ‘Meeting’ tab scroll down to ‘Nonverbal feedback’. Toggle the button on or off to enable or disable the participants to provide nonverbal feedback.
How to lower your hand on Zoom
Whether you are a host acknowledging a participant or a participant who accidentally raised their hand (hey, it happens), follow these steps to lower a hand in a Zoom meeting.
How to lower a participant’s hand
If you’re a host of the meeting and you wish to lower the hand of someone who used the ‘Raise hand’ feature, then you can do so by clicking the ‘Participants’ button from the meeting controls at the bottom.
When the Participants panel pops up on the right-hand side of the screen, hover the mouse over the participant’s name adjacent to whom a blue hand icon will appear. When you hover over the participant’s name, you will see a ‘Lower Hand’ option; click on it to lower the raised hand.
If you’re using Zoom on a phone, you can lower a participant’s raised hand by tapping on the ‘Participants’ tab in the meeting screen, tapping on the user’s name, and then selecting the ‘Lower Hand’ option from the popup menu.
How to lower hand yourself
If you’re the one who used the ‘Raise Hand’ feature to speak up during a meeting but you now want to undo it, you can do so using the ‘Lower Hand’ button that will appear in place of the ‘Raise Hand’ button.
To lower your hand inside a Zoom meeting on PC, click on the Participants tile from the meeting controls section at the bottom of your screen.
This will open up the Participants panel on the right-hand side and to undo the ‘Raise hand’ action, click on the ‘Lower Hand’ button at the bottom of the screen.
There’s a keyboard shortcut! Alternatively, you can use keyboard shortcuts to Lower your hand on Windows and Mac. Press the “Alt + Y” key on either of the systems to toggle Lower Hand option ON or OFF.
When using Zoom on your phone (Android or iOS), you can lower your hand by tapping the More button from meeting controls at the bottom right corner and then selecting the ‘Lower Hand’ option.
How to find all the participants who Raised Hands-on Zoom
The easiest way to view all the participants who have raised hands in the meeting is to click on the raised hand icon you see in the meeting’s screen.
Alternatively, you can also simply check out the ‘Participants’ menu to find the Raised Hand icon next to the participants who raised their hand.
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We hope this guide helped you understand how to ‘Raise Hand’ on different platforms. Have you tried it yet? How did it go? Let us know in the comments below.
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