How to Play a Video in a Zoom Meeting

Written by Darlene Antonelli, MALast Updated: November 24, 2020

If you’re in a Zoom meeting on your PC or Mac, you can share a video from your computer for others to see and hear. This wikiHow teaches you how to use Zoom screen sharing to play a video for everyone in your Zoom meeting.

Steps

1
Join or create a Zoom meeting. For more information on joining a meeting, refer to How to Join a Zoom Meeting on PC or Mac.
2
Open the video in another application or browser window. For example, if you want to share a video you downloaded to your computer, double-click the video file to open it in the default video player (such as Windows Media Player or Quicktime).
- You don’t have to start playing the video just yet—if the video plays automatically, click the pause button.
3
Click Share Screen in your Zoom meeting. It’s a green button at the bottom of the window.
4
Check the box next to “Optimize Screen Sharing for Video Clip.“ When you click this box, the box next to “Share computer sound” checks off too, which will ensure your audience hears the video sound.
5
Click the window or application containing your video. You’ll see all the screens you can share, including your Zoom screen and any tabs and windows you have open in a web browser, like YouTube.^[1]You’ll be able to tell which one contains your video based on the small preview image.
6
Click Share. Once you share the selected screen, the participants in the Zoom meeting will see what you’ve selected.
- For example, if you selected a YouTube page in the previous step, the participants in the Zoom meeting will see the YouTube page in your web browser. You can click the full-screen icon in the bottom right corner of the YouTube video to make it full-screen.
- If you paused the video earlier, return to it now and click Play to start it.
- When you want to stop sharing, click Stop Share at the top of your screen.^[2]