This Common Zoom Mistake Is Easy to Make — And It Can Ruin Your Reputation

In the last few months, Zoom has become a household name. But no matter how intuitive the software might be, many of us are still bumbling around our Zoom rooms, figuring out how to make video calls feel like real meetings — or even trying to figure out how we can successfully simulate the side eye that we'd normally give to our trusted colleagues when something is funny or annoying. 

I'm here to tell you that the move you might be making to privately chat with colleagues during meetings isn't as private as you may think. Big yikes. 

“If you're having a committee meeting via Zoom and you use the chat function to privately write to someone, your colleagues may not see it in real time, but it shows up when the chat is downloaded and put in the minutes folder," @HJHaldanePHD wrote. 

According to the representative, if the host records the meeting to the cloud, only chats sent publicly are saved. However, if the host records the Zoom meeting to their computer "chats sent publicly, as well as any private chat exchanges that the host who chose to record the meeting participated in during session, are saved.”

If you're hosting a meeting, you might want to check the minutes you download before distributing them to your team to make sure your private messages aren't being blasted. And if you're talking to a host, nudging them about checking the minutes is probably a solid idea. 

Or, you know, we can stick to facial expressions — just make sure your colleague is using Gallery view.