How to fix audio and video sync issues on Zoom

Try It Yourself

Measure the actual offset in milliseconds

Gives you a real number for the gap between your audio and video rather than an impression, which is what you need before applying any correction.

Run the Audio/Video Sync Test

Sync issues worsen under bandwidth pressure, since Zoom must buffer and re-sync streams arriving at uneven rates. Audio is small and prioritised; video is large and adaptive. Under congestion they diverge and Zoom's re-sync logic cannot always close the gap.

1. Close bandwidth-heavy background apps — cloud backups, downloads, other calls on the same network.
2. Test on wired Ethernet instead of Wi-Fi to establish whether the wireless link is the variable.
3. Note whether drift grows through the call. Accumulating drift points at buffering; constant drift points at fixed device latency.

Bluetooth headsets and speakers add their own processing delay on top of Zoom's, and that delay varies between meetings depending on the codec negotiated and radio interference in the room.

Disconnect the device entirely rather than just switching output, then rejoin with wired headphones. If sync improves, the Bluetooth device is a real contributor — this single substitution resolves more Zoom sync complaints than every software setting combined.

Put a real number on the gap with the Audio/Video Sync Test before trying to correct it.

In Settings → Video, disable HD if it is on. Higher resolution video takes longer to encode and can fall behind audio processing on lower-powered machines, presenting exactly as lip-sync drift.

This is most noticeable on older laptops without hardware video encoding, and when a virtual background or blur is running — background effects add a full segmentation pass to every frame before encoding starts.

Sync bugs are frequently fixed in point releases. Check via your profile picture → Check for Updates rather than assuming you are current — Zoom does not always update silently, and enterprise-managed installs are often held back deliberately.

If Zoom is centrally managed by your organisation you may not be able to update it yourself.

If the camera is slow to deliver frames, the Capture Latency Auditor measures the delay between capture and display.

A stuck internal audio/video sync buffer often persists across meetings within the same app session. Leaving and rejoining does not reset it — the buffer belongs to the application process, not the meeting.

Quit Zoom fully from the system tray or menu bar, then relaunch and rejoin — a distinct step from leaving the call.

Some webcams, especially budget ones, have several hundred milliseconds of built-in processing lag before the image reaches your computer. No Zoom setting fixes this; it is inherent to the camera.

Cameras doing heavy onboard work — aggressive noise reduction, automatic framing, onboard HDR — are the usual offenders, since each feature costs time before a frame is delivered. If a second camera on the same machine stays in sync, you have isolated it to the device.

For microphone-side problems, the Advanced Microphone & Room Acoustics Test checks input levels and noise floor.

Settings → Video → Enable HD, and Settings → Audio → Advanced

Settings → Audio → Advanced exposes echo cancellation and noise suppression, each adding a little latency, which you can turn down while testing.

Settings → Devices → Audio devices

Switching from a Bluetooth headset to a wired one here is the single most effective change available. Noise suppression can be set to Low while diagnosing.

More options (⋮) → Settings → Audio → Microphone

Meet inherits the browser's audio pipeline, so sync behaviour differs measurably between Chrome, Edge and Safari on identical hardware. Testing another browser is a fast, informative experiment.

Audio Mixer → gear icon → Advanced Audio Properties → Sync Offset (ms)

OBS is the only common tool that corrects sync directly. Enter the measured gap against the specific audio source and the correction is applied on capture.

1. Quit Zoom fully from the tray or menu bar and relaunch, rather than leaving and rejoining the meeting.
2. Disconnect any Bluetooth headset or speaker, switch to wired audio, then rejoin and reassess.
3. In Settings → Video, uncheck Enable HD and turn off any virtual background or blur while testing.
4. Close cloud backups, downloads and other calls competing for the same upload path.
5. Switch to wired Ethernet for one test call to remove Wi-Fi variability.
6. Check for a Zoom update via your profile picture → Check for Updates and install any point release.
7. Measure the actual offset in milliseconds so you know its size and whether it is constant or growing.
8. Test a second camera to establish whether the delay follows the device, then update the webcam driver.