How long needed at Zurich airport?

You have pre-check…..that means ZILCH in Zürich. Follow what Swiss Air advises. I believe Delta at ZUR for example instructs passengers to arrive 3 hours early.

The standard recommendation is 3 hrs. Pre-check has nothing to do with it. That is a US - TSA based program. You will need to go through exit immigration. If you flight is very earlier and the crowds are small, you might cut it to two hours but why take the risk? Go early, get checked in, and have your last coffee and pastry.

Do you have your boarding pass? Does it say TSA Pre-Check? If so, that confuses a lot of people.

Everyone flying to the US, or over the US, has to have their name put through the TSA computers to make sure you are safe to fly. Since you have pre-check, and Swiss Air is a participating airline, the TSA computer sends that information to the Swiss Air computer and it gets printed. But it means nothing. As others have said, Precheck is only for US airports.

What time is your flight?
For our last British Airways flight out of Zurich, my husband got us to the airport before any desk employees arrived. Whatever...
However, British Airways has a small presence in Zurich, unlike Swiss Air, who should have many desks manned throughout the day.
I'd saw two hours is sufficient.
Safe travels and please share a Trip Report once you're rested!

We always arrive around 2 hours early and haven't run into any issues.

Thanks all. Our flight departs at 1:10 pm and Swiss Air says it's boards at 12:10. I think we will get to the airport at 10:00 just in case.

SwissAir isn't telling you anything, as it ceased trading 20 years ago. You are flying on SWISS :-)

Now interestingly SWISS Will happely sell you a Train+Plane connection in ZRH with a connection time of 1 1/2h, even for flights to the US. So they seem to believe that if you arrive 90 minutes before your flight that is enough to do your bag drop, go through security and then passport control.
In my experience that his always been enough. Before the pandemic I flew out of Zurich almost every other week. I normally needed 20 minutes from train to the Lounge. And that included dropping of a bag. When you come of the train you can use Check-in 3, which is in the train station, just one escalator ride from the platforms.

Only one one occasion where there long queues. But then they still called people with imminent flights to a separate counter, and I still made it.

if you arrive 90 minutes before your flight that is enough to do your bag drop, go through security and then passport control. In my experience that his always been enough. Before the pandemic I flew out of Zurich almost every other week

OP being a tourist, probably is not as familiar as a local with the airport, so a bit of a time cushion is not a bad idea.

A bit of time cushion is indeed not a bad idea. But Zurich is quite easy to navigate, even if you are there for your first time.

Only took 90 minutes from start to finish including a random screening and needing to print out bag tags at the airport. Everyone was super helpful and friendly...of course.
Thank you everyone. We sure hope to come back soon!