Plan online discussions before the meeting

Breakout Room AssignmentGenerator

Split participants into balanced online rooms, check email readiness and download a Zoom pre-assignment CSV without uploading your roster.

Assign breakout rooms Read the guide

Free • Local processing • No account

Clay laptop meeting grid branching into three small online discussion windows beside an export file

Prepare rooms and the import file

Names work for a local plan; Zoom import needs a distinct account email for every participant.

Participant roster

One name | email per line, or a tab between fields. Names alone can be planned. Up to 1,000 people, 120 characters per name and 200,000 input characters.

UTF-8 TXT up to 200,000 bytes in the same line format. This does not import arbitrary CSV spreadsheets.

Matching names keep separate IDs. Duplicate supplied emails are rejected case-insensitively. Example.com addresses are samples; replace them before platform import.

Open current Zoom pre-assignment help (new tab)
6
People
—
Rooms
0
Missing emails

1–100 nonempty rooms, never more than people. Room count × limit must fit everyone; sizes differ by at most one. Prefix: 1–80 characters. These tool limits do not increase your Zoom account capacity.

Six sample participants are ready for three rooms. Replace example emails before a real import.

Complete room assignments

Generate to see every room, headcount and email readiness.

Names, emails and plans stay in this tab and local worker without uploads or persistent tool storage. Export before refreshing.

A room plan and a platform import have different needs

Keep the entire roster visible throughout the process.

Random groups for an online discussion

A breakout room assignment generator helps a host prepare discussion groups before an online workshop or class. Enter the room count and a maximum headcount per room, then randomize the participant list. All participants receive exactly one room and room sizes differ by at most one. The tool does not connect to a meeting or move anybody between live rooms. It produces a plan you can review, copy and print, with a separate platform export when the required email identities are present.

Try the sample roster
Remote workshop organizer reviewing three video discussion windows on a monitor at a home desk

Validate the file before relying on it

Display names can distinguish people in your organizer’s roster, but an import needs account identities. Missing emails remain visible in the local room list and full roster CSV. They disable the Zoom-specific download for the whole plan, preventing an apparently complete file that silently drops participants. Duplicate supplied emails are rejected without deleting matching names. The screen also shows a twenty-row preview of the exact room and email columns; the download includes every participant, not just those preview rows.

Review export readiness
Close view of a two-column export sheet beside email identity cards and room tabs without written labels

How to generate a Zoom breakout room CSV

Prepare a local roster, check the split, then import in the meeting platform.

  1. 01

    Paste names with optional email addresses

    Use one participant per line: name | email, or a name followed by a tab and email. A name alone is valid for local planning. Blank lines are ignored and matching display names remain separate numbered entries. Each name can contain up to one hundred twenty characters. The tool supports up to one thousand participants within two hundred thousand input characters. Import a UTF-8 TXT file in the same format when your roster is already prepared. This input is not an importer for an arbitrary spreadsheet or a Zoom CSV.

  2. 02

    Set the room count and a real headcount limit

    Choose one to one hundred rooms, never more rooms than participants, and a maximum of one to one thousand people per room. The number of rooms multiplied by that limit must fit the entire roster. A configuration that cannot fit stops before producing any assignment. Room names use your prefix followed by a number, such as Discussion 1. Larger rooms are randomized among the room numbers when the total does not divide evenly, rather than always giving the first room the extra person.

  3. 03

    Review, export and use the platform import

    Generate the plan and check every room, email warning and headcount. Copy, print or download the full organizer roster at any point. When every participant has a distinct valid supported email and the export cells are safe, download the Zoom file. Upload that file through the meeting’s breakout pre-assignment CSV import in the Zoom web portal. This site does not upload it for you. Follow the linked official help for the current host settings and review Zoom’s validation before accepting the meeting setup.

What the file generator guarantees

Local validation is useful without pretending to verify a remote account.

One room per entry, no hidden overflow

The split uses a secure Fisher–Yates shuffle of participant identities and a randomized distribution of the balanced room sizes. Every input ID appears once, every room is nonempty, and no room exceeds the configured headcount. Duplicate names are kept because different people can share a name. A repeated email, compared without letter case, is rejected because one account cannot identify two separate participants in this export. This is a single draw; it does not balance skills, enforce together/apart rules or avoid partners from previous meetings.

Separate Zoom format from the full roster

The Zoom CSV uses exactly two fixed English headers, Pre-assign Room Name and Email Address, in that order. It includes room names and emails only, without a display-name or entry-ID column. The full roster CSV is a different file with all organizer fields and missing-email statuses. Keep that distinction when choosing an upload. Downloads use UTF-8, properly quote fields and preserve every row. Formula-leading room prefixes or email cells block the Zoom download rather than modifying an account identity with a protective apostrophe.

Email checks have a clear boundary

Supplied addresses are checked against a practical unquoted ASCII mailbox format with a domain containing a dot, length limits and no invalid domain labels. Internationalized or quoted mailbox forms are not supported. These checks cannot establish that an address exists, receives messages or belongs to a Zoom account. A participant must use the matching signed-in Zoom account for a pre-assignment to apply. The example.com sample addresses are placeholders for testing the tool; replace them with actual participant account emails before using the platform import.

Example: six people in three rooms

Inspect both a complete split and an email-incomplete plan.

  1. 01

    Read a balanced complete room roster

    Use Alex, Blair, Casey, Drew, Emery and Finley with six distinct example.com emails. Set three rooms, a maximum of three people per room and prefix Discussion. The result has two people in each of Discussion 1, Discussion 2 and Discussion 3, with one occurrence of each entry ID. A valid draw could put Alex with Emery, Blair with Drew and Casey with Finley. That grouping illustrates the structure; a fresh draw can produce a different set of pairs without changing the room sizes.

  2. 02

    See how missing emails affect the export

    Remove the email from Finley’s line and generate again. Finley still receives a room and appears in copy, print and the full roster download. The missing-email total becomes one and the Zoom-specific download is disabled. Add the correct account email, which clears the old result, then regenerate and check readiness again. Conversely, pasting Alex’s email onto Finley’s line stops generation with the conflicting entry number. The tool will not merge those two people or guess which account belongs to which name.

Prepare a reliable online session

The generated list is one part of the host’s setup.

  1. 01

    Confirm identity and platform settings early

    Ask participants for the account email they will actually use, not merely a display name or another contact address. Confirm the host’s breakout pre-assignment settings and test the file before the event. Zoom checks account identity during import, and participants need the associated signed-in account when joining. The generator’s one-thousand-person and one-hundred-room limits are local tool limits; they do not increase your meeting capacity or account permissions. The official help link is the reference for platform prerequisites, which may differ from this file’s local validation.

  2. 02

    Choose a sensible discussion size

    A room’s maximum is a hard planning limit, not a target that must be filled. Seven participants across three rooms produce sizes three, two and two when capacity is at least three. Raising capacity alone does not change the requested room count. Consider the activity’s speaking time and the available facilitators before choosing those numbers. This page does not assign a facilitator, lock a participant to a room, schedule multiple rounds or reserve a room for late arrivals. Regenerating replaces the whole local grouping rather than preserving earlier decisions.

  3. 03

    Keep the organizer file for manual recovery

    Use the full roster when you need names and IDs for a manual check, especially if someone joins with a different account or cannot be matched. The Zoom file is not a meeting invitation, registration import, Teams template or universal conferencing CSV. Nothing is sent to a participant or to Zoom from this page. Names, emails and results stay in the tab and local worker without persistent storage by the tool. Export before refreshing. For a name-only split without platform identities, the basic Random Group Generator is also available.

Breakout room assignment questions

Answers about balance, emails, CSV structure and meeting setup.

How can I randomly assign participants to breakout rooms?

Paste names with optional emails, choose the room count, headcount limit and room prefix, then generate. Every entry gets one room and sizes differ by at most one. The capacity must fit everyone. Copy or print the local plan, or use the Zoom-specific download when all email checks pass.

Can I make a room plan using names only?

Yes. Missing email addresses do not remove anyone from the grouping. Those entries remain visible in copy, print and the full roster CSV. The Zoom-specific file is disabled until every participant has a supported distinct email, because a display name alone cannot supply that import identity.

What column headers does the Zoom pre-assignment CSV need?

The export uses Pre-assign Room Name followed by Email Address, with room and email values only. Those headers stay in English on both language pages. Choose the Zoom download for that import; the full roster CSV has additional organizer fields and is not the same platform template.

Why does a participant fail to enter the pre-assigned room?

A syntactically valid email is not proof of a matching account. Check the account used at import and the participant’s signed-in email when joining, then review the host’s setup and platform feedback. The tool does not inspect your meeting or verify remote accounts. Keep the name roster available for manual recovery.

Can I use repeated names or repeated email addresses?

Repeated names are preserved as separate numbered people. A repeated supplied email, compared without letter case, is rejected with the entry number instead of being merged or exported twice. Blank email fields are allowed for planning. Internationalized and quoted email syntax is outside the supported validator.

What if there are too few room places or too many rooms?

Generation stops with an explanation when the room count exceeds the participant count or total capacity cannot hold everyone. The tool never leaves someone outside the result or exceeds the headcount limit. Reduce the room count when it would create empty rooms, or add real capacity when there are not enough places.

Does downloading the CSV create or manage the live rooms?

No. You upload the Zoom file yourself through the meeting’s pre-assignment workflow and review its validation. The generator does not open rooms, invite participants, join the meeting, store several rounds or synchronize changes. Its local participant and room limits do not change your account’s actual meeting capacity.

Are names and emails uploaded or saved?

This tool processes the roster in the current tab and local worker, without uploading or persistently saving it. Copy, print and downloads contain the data you selected, so keep those files appropriately. Editing inputs cancels the previous calculation and clears the result. Refreshing or leaving loses the local plan unless you exported it.

Breakout Room Assignment

Start the discussion with a checked room list

Set a practical room count and headcount.

Review every participant and email before importing.

Create breakout assignments Explore all tools
  • Free to use
  • No signup
  • Runs in your browser

A simple path to your next activity

  1. Add the roster

    Names plus the account emails you have.

  2. Check the split

    Balanced rooms within the configured limit.

  3. Choose the file

    Full organizer roster or the Zoom import CSV.

The file prepares a meeting setup; you still import and verify it in Zoom.