How to use Raise Hand and manage the speaking queue in Jitsi Meet

Scope and client verification

This guide explains how participants signal that they want to speak, how moderators track turn-taking in large discussions, and how administrators configure hand-lowering behavior. It was verified against immutable Jitsi Meet 11248 client source code on 30 October 2026. [S1][S2][S3]

This is an evergreen workflow guide, not a newly introduced feature announcement. Native mobile apps, embedded IFrame deployments, and custom themes may place buttons in different menus. No live meeting, audio routing, or multi-user server test was conducted. [S1]

How participants raise and lower hands

Every attendee in a Jitsi Meet conference can raise their hand to request a turn to speak:

1. Toolbar button: Click the Raise Hand icon located on the main bottom toolbar. On mobile browsers or smaller screens where toolbar space is constrained, open the overflow menu (three vertical dots) and select Raise hand. [S1]
2. Keyboard shortcut: On desktop web browsers, press R to toggle your hand status immediately without opening a menu. [S2]
3. Visual confirmation: When your hand is raised, your local toolbar button changes color or shows an active state. A hand icon badge appears on your video tile and next to your name in the participant roster. [S1][S3]
4. Audio cue: A short chime plays to alert attendees and moderators that a hand was raised, provided participant sound alerts are enabled. [S2]
5. Lowering your hand: Click the toolbar button again or press R to lower your hand manually before speaking. [S1][S2]

In standard meetings without strict audio restrictions, raising your hand does not mute or unmute your microphone automatically. You still unmute yourself when the moderator invites you to speak. [S1]

How Jitsi tracks and orders the speaking queue

When multiple participants raise their hands, Jitsi Meet does not display numbers directly on video tiles. Instead, the conference tracks a chronological queue in the Participants pane:

• Timestamp tracking: Each time a participant raises their hand, the client records an exact millisecond timestamp in conference presence (raisedHandTimestamp). [S2]
• The Participants pane: Open the roster by clicking the Participants button (icon with people) on the toolbar. [S3]
• Sorting hierarchy: The client applies a structured sort order to the participant roster:
  1. The dominant speaker (if their hand is not raised).
  2. The local participant (you).
  3. All participants with raised hands, sorted chronologically from earliest to latest timestamp.
  4. Participants sharing their screen.
  5. Shared video participants.
  6. Recent active speakers.
  7. The remaining participants, ordered alphabetically by display name. [S3]

Because raised hands are sorted directly by request time, the attendee who raised their hand first sits at the top of the raised-hand block in the Participants pane. The second person appears immediately below them, creating an orderly speaking queue for Q&A sessions, workshops, and classroom discussions. [S3]

If the dominant speaker raises their hand while talking, they retain their chronological position in the raised-hand queue rather than jumping ahead of earlier requests. [S3]

Why hands lower automatically when speaking

A frequent point of confusion is a raised hand that disappears as soon as a participant begins talking:

1. Dominant speaker detection: In the official client middleware, when you unmute and your audio level crosses the detection threshold (LOWER_HAND_AUDIO_LEVEL), or when the bridge identifies you as the dominant speaker, Jitsi dispatches an automatic lower-hand action. [S2]
2. Designed purpose: This automatic reset is intentional. In standard meetings, it clears the participant from the speaking queue once they receive the floor, removing the need for manual button clicks while speaking. [S2]
3. Re-raising if interrupted: If you were acknowledged briefly but still need a turn in the queue, press R or click Raise Hand again to re-enter the queue with a fresh timestamp. [S1][S2]
4. Server configuration override: If your organization requires hands to remain raised until a moderator or user explicitly dismisses them, the server administrator can configure disableRemoveRaisedHandOnFocus: true in config.js. [S2][S4]

// /etc/jitsi/meet/<your-domain>-config.js
var config = {
    // Keep raised hands active even when a participant speaks
    disableRemoveRaisedHandOnFocus: true,
};

On public services such as meet.jit.si, this setting is managed by the service provider and defaults to automatic lowering on speech. [S4]

Moderator controls and turn-taking

Meeting moderators (indicated by a star or crown badge on their avatar) have additional tools to coordinate the speaking queue:

• Queue overview: Keep the Participants pane open during presentations. When hands are raised, toast notifications appear with a View participants action that opens the sidebar automatically. [S2][S3]
• Batched notifications: When multiple participants raise their hands within a short window, Jitsi groups them into a single summary notification (for example, “Alex and 2 others raised their hand”). [S2]
• Giving the floor: Call on the person at the top of the raised-hand list in the Participants pane, then invite them to unmute. [S3]
• Lowering individual hands: If an attendee finishes speaking but forgets to lower their hand, click the three-dot menu next to their name in the Participants pane and select Lower hand. [S3]
• Lowering all hands: To reset the queue after a discussion topic concludes, open the Participants pane header and select Lower all hands to clear every active hand signal in the room simultaneously. [S3]

Interaction with AV Moderation

When a meeting uses AV Moderation (where attendees are force-muted and cannot unmute themselves freely):

1. An attendee clicks Raise Hand to ask for permission to speak. [S1][S2]
2. The client recognizes that the attendee is force-muted and displays an actionable approval notification directly to all moderators. [S2]
3. The notification contains quick action buttons: Allow audio, Allow video, or Allow all. [S2]
4. Once a moderator approves the request, the attendee receives permission to unmute their device. [S2]

Common questions and troubleshooting

Embedding notes for developers

Applications embedding Jitsi via the IFrame API can trigger and monitor the speaking queue programmatically:

// Toggle raise hand for the local user
api.executeCommand('toggleRaiseHand');

// Listen for hand-raise status changes across the room
api.addListener('raiseHandUpdated', (event) => {
    console.log('Participant:', event.id, 'Hand raised timestamp:', event.handRaised);
});

The raiseHandUpdated event returns the participant identifier and their associated timestamp, allowing custom applications to render their own queue counters, speaker timers, or waiting lists outside the meeting iframe. [S2][S5]

Rehearsal and operational checklist

Before moderating an important seminar or webinar with Jitsi Meet:

1. Test the shortcut: Confirm that pressing R toggles your hand indicator on and off cleanly.
2. Verify the queue with two attendees: Have two attendees raise their hands a few seconds apart. Verify in the Participants pane that the first attendee appears above the second attendee.
3. Check speech behavior: Have the speaker unmute and talk. Confirm whether the hand auto-lowers on your server deployment.
4. Practice moderator resets: Practice using Lower hand from an attendee’s context menu and Lower all hands from the pane header.
5. Check AV moderation if used: If attendees will be force-muted, verify that raising a hand triggers the moderator’s approval notification banner.

Primary sources

• [S1] Jitsi Meet 11248 source: RaiseHandButton component and toolbar action definitions.
• [S2] Jitsi Meet 11248 source: participants middleware (auto-lowering on dominant speaker, audio level thresholds, queue dispatch, and AV moderation notification handling).
• [S3] Jitsi Meet 11248 source: participants pane sorting functions (getSortedParticipantIds and getRaiseHandsQueue), RaisedHandIndicator, and context menu actions.
• [S4] Jitsi Meet configuration schema: config.js documentation (disableRemoveRaisedHandOnFocus).
• [S5] Jitsi Meet IFrame API command reference, reviewed 30 October 2026.