Tailor Zoom Chat’s settings to suit your individual needs so that you can spend more time collaborating and getting things done!
From the Zoom desktop application, click on your profile image in the upper right and select Settings.
Once the setting window appears, select Chat from the left side menu.
If a setting covered in this video isn’t visible to you,
it is likely that you are either running an older version of Zoom and need to update,
using a different operating system which leads to subtle differences,
you don’t have the particular setting enabled or a feature
or setting has been disabled by your Zoom account administrator.
Shown at the top of your left sidebar are smart collections.
For a collection you don’t use often, simply toggle it off here to hide it.
Hidden options are still accessible but take up less visual space.
Next you can customize the behavior of your left sidebar.
Checking this box will limit you to having a single section or folder open at a time.
This can be helpful so that you don’t see too many chats at a given moment.
While seeing the lovely profile pictures of your team members is the default view in the chat sidebar,
you can simplify your view by disabling profile pictures next to direct messages.
When toggled off, you will only see status icons next to these chats.
Finally you can modify the background color of your sidebar between a few different colors.
The first three settings of this section are pretty straight forward.
Check or uncheck these boxes to show or hide these tools in the message field.
When posting a message that contains a link, a preview may be auto-generated just below the message.
While you can always collapse these link previews, here you can entirely disable them.
If you are inactive for a certain period of time,
you can have Zoom automatically change your status to away by checking this box.
And finally, you can manage any contacts that you have blocked here as well.
How you handle unread messages is a big deal, and these particular settings can help you sort through them quickly.
If a channel has unread messages; you can choose whether to see a single red dot
or see the number of unread messages to the right of the channel’s name.
While this is a global setting, you can also modify this for individual channels.
This next setting is a big one. Zoom Chat, by default, displays chat messages in chronological order.
As new threaded replies are posted to earlier conversations, you’ll need to navigate from message to message to read them.
However, this is where you can have Zoom Chat automate things for you.
Enabling this setting to move new messages to the bottom of the chat will force you to restart Zoom, which is a quick process.
Once logged back in, Zoom Chat will collect all new messages in a given channel
and bring them to the bottom of the chat for you just like magic.
You can then choose where to start reading when visiting a chat or channel.
Do you want to start reading the first unread message or the latest?
I’d recommend starting at the first unread message so that you can systematically scroll
down through the new messages as you get up to speed with the ongoing conversations.
The final section of the Zoom Chat settings deals with notifications.
You’ll receive notifications for all messages by default, but that might get too noisy or bothersome.
Here you can set a blanket default policy, but you can always tweak this setting for individual channels as needed.
Zoom Chat can also notify you when certain keywords appear in any chat or channel you are a part of.
Enter those keywords here, and Zoom Chat will act as an "eye in the sky" for you,
letting you know each time this exact keyword is used!
As you interact and follow messages, Zoom Chat will notify you of any new replies unless you uncheck this setting.
If you would like to silence all notifications from Zoom Chat for a regular, recurring time frame,
set a time range when you wish not to be disturbed.
Your status icon will also automatically change to do not disturb during this designated time frame.
Next, you can choose to receive an auditory alert to accompany the on-screen alert by checking this box.
The final setting to point out relates to a message preview being shown in on-screen notifications.
When disabled, messages will appear as simple notifications.
When enabled, the notification will show a portion of the message on screen.
Ohhhhh. Now, THIS is my kind of notification. I better get moving.