Learning how to record a Zoom meeting can be incredibly beneficial to business leaders, and employees alike. Recording meetings isn’t just beneficial for compliance purposes, it can also be an excellent way to share conversations with team members who couldn’t attend a meeting, or provide users with a way to double-check important information.
The good news for business leaders is that recording meetings is relatively straightforward with Zoom. The platform offers local recording on all plans (including the free package). Plus, there are even various Zoom integrations and apps that can help teams to manage recordings too.
Here’s everything businesses need to know about recording, managing, and sharing Zoom meetings, on both desktop and mobile devices.
Can Users Record Zoom Meetings?
Any meeting host on Zoom will have the option to record a meeting, although the exact recording functionality available to each user will vary depending on a number of factors.
First of all, local recording is the only option available to users on Zoom’s free plan. This means any recordings will be stored directly to the device the person is using. These files can then be uploaded to a file storage service, such as Dropbox, or Google Drive, however.
Notably, local recording comes with some limitations. It’s not supported on Android, iPad, or iOS devices, and certain features are restricted. For instance, users can’t access the following with local recordings:
- The ability to record gallery views, active speakers, and shared screens separately
- Audio transcription
- Shared screen recording layouts
Zoom users on a paid subscription plan have another option: cloud recording, which allows them to save all recordings directly in the secure Zoom cloud environment. This recording option features fewer limitations, but it does require users to have a subscription to Zoom, or pay additional fees for cloud storage. Notably, for both local and cloud services, users will need to either host a meeting to access recording features, or administrators will need to give participants recording permissions.
Business leaders can enable local and cloud recording by visiting the “Account Management” section of the Zoom Account Settings page, and clicking on the “Recording” tab. Here, users can also choose how chat messages, closed captions, and video content is saved and stored.
How to Record a Zoom Meeting on a Computer
Recording a Zoom Meeting on a laptop or computer is extremely straightforward. As the host of a meeting, users can click on the meeting button to start or launch a new session. As soon as the meeting launches, a “Record” button will appear at the bottom of the session window.
Users can click this button to start recording the meeting, or use the Alt + R command. When a host starts recording a meeting, a small notification will appear in the upper left of the screen to show that the recording is in progress. Participants in a meeting can also look at the attendees to list to see who is actively recording at any given time.
After clicking on “Record”, paid users will be able to choose between local or cloud recording options. It’s also possible to either click the “pause” button to pause a recording, or the “stop” button to stop recording at any point during the meeting.
Once the meeting has ended, Zoom will automatically convert the recording into accessible files. Audio video files are saved in the MP4 format.
How to Record a Zoom Meeting on a Phone
Notably, Zoom meetings cannot be recorded on Android or iOS devices by free users accessing the local recording service. The only way to record meetings on a mobile device is to subscribe to a paid Zoom plan. Paid users can start recording on a phone by:
- Launching or hosting a new meeting session
- Clicking the three dots on the bottom right of the screen
- Choosing “Record to the cloud” or “Record”
Once again, Zoom will display a notification which shows when a user is recording a meeting. Phone users can also tap the recording icon on their phone screen to pause or stop the recording at any time. Any meeting recorded on a mobile device will be saved automatically in an online folder.
Users can find their recordings either in the “My Recordings” section on the Zoom website, or in the “Meetings” tab on the desktop version of the Zoom app. Notably, if a recording is interrupted for any reason, the data may be lost. This is one of the reasons some users prefer to use a third-party app to record Zoom meetings just in case something goes wrong.
Once users have finished recording a meeting, either on a desktop or mobile device, they can choose to share that recording either from the “My Recordings” section of Zoom, or by uploading their file to their preferred cloud sharing service.
How to Record a Zoom Meeting if You’re Not the Host
Crucially, Zoom only allows meeting hosts to record conversations by default. However, there are still ways for participants to record a meeting if they’re not acting as the host. The easiest way to allow this is for business leaders to simply enable participant recording in their Zoom sessions.
Hosts can grant participants authorization to record any meeting by selecting “Participants” during a Zoom meeting, and hovering over the person they want to give recording permissions too. An icon featuring three dots should appear. Click on this, and select “Allow to Record local files”. It’s also possible to use the “More” tab on Zoom to remove permission to record from a participant.
Admins can also set up local recording for a group of users, by clicking on the “User Management” section in the navigation menu for the Zoom web app, then choosing “Groups”. Select the applicable group name from the list that appears, and click on the “Recording” tab to enable local recording.
Alternatively, companies can choose to use separate recording software designed to capture screens, audio, video, and other information from Zoom meetings. There are various apps available which offer this service, as well as native integrations offered within the Zoom app marketplace.
