Discover how to raise your hand on Zoom using your Windows PC or a mobile phone; speak up while on video meeting with your colleagues.
While conferencing through video apps have brought people together and helped mimic working conditions, they lack the personal interactions that come with physical meetings, such as how to get the host’s attention when you are in communication with 50 other people.
When attending a Zoom meeting or online lesson, there are specific rules you must follow. Online meetings can feel more relaxed as you can participate from the comfort of your home. However, some rules make meetings more efficient.
One of the first rules is that you shouldn’t start talking when you want, as this can distract the host and other participants. You should politely raise your hand to let the host know you have something to say and wait for the other person to finish. But how do you raise your hand in a Zoom meeting?
What is Raise your Hand in Zoom?
Zoom provides an interesting way of enabling users to interact with the meeting leader by providing non-verbal feedback.
One of these feedback options allows attendees to raise their hands during a meeting and notify the host simultaneously. That way, you can ask to speak in a meeting or share your concern if the host has muted you.
In addition to Zoom, only Microsoft Teams allows users to use the raise hands feature during meetings. It is expected that Google will implement a practical feature for its Meet users in an upcoming version, with which meeting participants will be able to speak with raised hands.
How to Raise your Hand on Windows PC and Mac
If you’re attending a Zoom meeting from your Windows PC or Macbook, follow these instructions to provide non-verbal feedback to the host by raising their hand.
Step 1: Start Zoom and join a meeting as a participant (not a host).
Step 2: In the meeting controls at the bottom of the screen, click the Attendee button. This offers several options for providing non-verbal feedback.
Step 3: From the Participant Control Panel on the right side of the screen, select the Raise Hand option.
There is a keyboard shortcut! You can also use keyboard shortcuts to raise your hand on Windows and Mac. Press the Alt + Y keys on both systems to toggle the Raise Hand option on or off.
The Raise Hand button is only visible if you are not the current chairperson. If you’ve previously left a meeting and the current host hasn’t assigned you to host, you can access the Raise Hand button in your Participant window.
Note: Zooming in will only activate one type of non-verbal feedback at a time.
How to Raise your Hand on Android and iPhone
If you’re using the mobile version of the Zoom app, follow these instructions to provide non-verbal feedback to the host by raising their hand.
Step 1: Launch the Zoom app and join a meeting as a participant rather than a host.
Step 2: To raise your hand to speak, press the “More” button in the meeting controls in the lower right corner of the screen.
Step 3: Select the “Raise Hand” option from the context menu.
The meeting leader will now receive a raised hand notification regardless of the device they are zooming on.
How to Raise your Hand while on a Phone Call
With Zoom, users can call meetings directly from a phone without using an app. In such cases, if the participant wants to raise their hand on the phone during a meeting, they must dial * 9 on the telephone keypad.
To lower their hand, the subscriber must dial * 9 again on the telephone keypad.
Where is the Raise Hand icon?
When a participant has raised their hand in a meeting using the raised hand on the Zoom option, a small hand icon appears next to their name. Zoom lists the participants in the order in which they raised their hands.
When checking out on your PC, you can determine if a participant has raised their hand by clicking the Participant tab at the bottom of the screen. A list of participants who are on the phone is displayed. In this list, you can see all participants who have raised their hands.
- While checking your phone (Android or iOS) to see if you or someone in a meeting raised your hand, tap the Attendees tab at the bottom of the screen.
- On the next screen, look for a blue hand icon next to someone’s name on this list. When such an icon appears, it means that the user has raised their hand to speak.
Are you missing raised Hand Option?
There could be two reasons why a user cannot see the raise hand icon.
In full-screen mode, Zoom minimizes the bottom toolbar for an immersive experience. If you don’t see the bottom toolbar during a meeting, here’s what you can do:
On mobile devices, just touch your Zoom meeting screen, and the toolbar will appear. You can now select the Participants tab and select “Raise your hand.”
On the PC, just hover your mouse over the zoom meeting screen to reveal the toolbar. You can now click the Participants tab, then click Raise Hand.
If the host has turned off non-verbal comments for the meeting, attendees will not see the Raise Hand option or other comments. Have the meeting host enable non-verbal feedback in their web zoom settings to enable the raise hand feature.
How to Lower a Participant’s Hand
If you are the chairperson and want to lower the hand of someone who has used the Raised Hand feature, you can do so by clicking the Attendees button in the meeting controls by clicking the Attendees lower hand button located on the raise hand option.
When the Attendee window appears on the right side of the screen, hover over the attendee’s name, which has a blue hand icon next to it. If you hover over the participant’s name, the “Underhand” option will appear. Click on it to lower your raised hand.
If you’re using Zoom on the phone, you can lower a participant’s raised hand by tapping the Participants tab on the meeting screen, tapping the user’s name, and then selecting the Underhand option from the context menu.
How to Lower your Hand yourself
If you used the Raise Hand feature to speak during a meeting but now want to cancel, you can do so using the Lower Hand button instead of Raise Your Hand.
To lower your hand during a Zoom PC meeting, click the Participants tile in the Meeting Controls section at the bottom of the screen.
This will open the participant window on the right. To undo the “Raise Hand” action, click the “Lower Hand” button at the bottom of the screen.
There is a keyboard shortcut! You can also use keyboard shortcuts to lower your hand on Windows and Mac. Press the Alt + Y keys on either system to toggle the underhand option on or off.
If you’re using Zoom on your phone (Android or iOS), you can lower your hand by tapping the plus button in the meeting controls in the lower right corner, then selecting the Low Hand option.
This is how you can find all participants who have zoomed in
The easiest way to see all of the attendees who have raised their hands in the meeting is to click the raised hand icon that you see on the meeting screen.
You can also simply access the Participants’ menu to find the raised hand icon next to the participants who have raised their hands.
Zoom Etiquette (in conclusion)
While Zoom meetings are usually more informal than boardroom meetings, there are a few rules that you need to follow evident with the Raise Hand on Zoom. As mentioned earlier, the first rule is to raise your hand when you have something to say.
The second rule is to keep the microphone quiet when you are not speaking. Especially when other noises come from home, e.g., when your spouse is watching TV, or your children are playing in the other room.
If the conference call lasts too long, you might be tempted to scroll through social media or read an interesting article in a magazine. We recommend not doing this as the third rule is to avoid distractions while on a call. You may think that the other participants will not notice that your mind is elsewhere, but that is not true.
In the end, not listening to your co-workers is disrespectful, and you can get a bad rap simply because you couldn’t resist the urge to visit your Facebook page! You may also miss an important part of the meeting and then have someone repeat it for you, which can be very inconvenient.