Start a Zoom meeting from the command line

Piece of cake! Use a windows shortcut instead! It's easier and cleaner.

You can use this same method on Linux (or mac) but you will need to put it into a script or alias it instead.

I figured this out myself when I went down the same path.

1. Create a shortcut to your zoom exe. It should be in %APPDATA%\Zoom\bin\Zoom.exe
2. Open the shortcut properties and edit the "Target" field.
3. Go down after the EXE and add (with the quotes) "--url=zoommtg://zoom.us/join?action=join&confno=<your_conference_number>"

If you have a password, it is hashed so you will need to launch the meeting once in the browser and copy it out. Once you have your hashed password, add &pwd=<hashed_password> after your conference number (with no spaces).

Some other handy things to know

• I myself add .LNK to my PATHEXT environment variable. This allows me to launch a shortcut without clicking on it. Possible vulnerability but I am willing to risk it.
• After adding that, I can put shortcuts in my path and launch them using only the name via the run dialog or console.

An example

• I put a shortcut for my standup meeting in my path.
• [Win]+r (pulls up the run dialog)
• I type 'standup' and hit [ENTER] to open my standup meeting.

If you're on a Mac you can join a zoom meeting from the command line like so (e.g. for conference ID 1234):

open "zoommtg://zoom.us/join?confno=1234"

To make it handier you can add a shell function to your .bashrc or .zshrc:

function  zoom () { open "zoommtg://zoom.us/join?confno=$1" }

Then you can just join a call using:

zoom 1234