Zoom Recording 101

Ok class, attention please! The number one topic our support team gets questions about isn’t complicated firewall traversals, encryption, or other deeply technical issues. It’s recording. This makes sense. Every Zoomer at one time or another will probably want to record their meeting or webinar. Particularly for training and legal purposes, recording can be a total cost saver and lifesaver. So let’s all take a quick lesson in Recording 101:

Zoom now has two types of meeting recordings: local recording and cloud recording. Local recordings, which are the recordings that come standard with all Zoom accounts, are saved to your device. Cloud recordings, a paid option, are saved to the Zoom Cloud where they can be viewed, shared, and downloaded. Both options provide standard (and we cannot emphasize the word "standard" enough here) MP4 video and M4A audio files.

You start recording by pressing Record on the bottom of your Zoom meeting window. If you have cloud recording enabled, a pop-up will appear above asking what kind of recording you want: Cloud or Local. You’ll know recording has begun because a red light will appear in the upper left corner of your Zoom window with the words “Stop Recording.” Click that when you’re ready to stop the recording.

Your local recordings are stored to your hard disk. By default, they’re in your Documents folder in a file marked zoom. Here are more details on finding your local recordings. You can also enable automatic recording, a setting that is off by default.

When you opt for cloud recording, you get a high quality recording of your meeting delivered to the cloud, which you can password protect, share, and download. This feature is off by default, and is available to paid Zoom Pro, Business, and Education plan subscribers with the Cloud Recording add-on deployed. One great thing about cloud recording is that you can do it from your mobile device and Zoom Room, as well as your desktop. You can find your cloud recordings by logging in to your account at zoom.us/signin and clicking on My Recordings. More information on using cloud recording.

We asked our support engineers to plumb the depths of their knowledge for a few best practices that will help you make the most of your recordings. The results:

• Use a wired internet connection
• Use a headset or directional microphone
• Mute all the non-speaking attendees
• We get a lot of questions about what exactly the recording captures. A good rule of thumb is that your recording generally captures what you’re seeing on your screen. So, if you want the recording to show just one person, pin their video. If you want to show whoever is talking at the moment, use active speaker mode.

Because Zoom recordings are in very common, easy-to-edit MP4 and M4A formats, you can do pretty much whatever you want with them, including editing, transcribing, translating, captioning, and sharing. Check out this blog post for more details and ideas. If the idea of hosting and possibly recording your own meetings and webinars has you pumped, sign up for a live demo with a Zoom product specialist today!