How to record a meeting on Zoom

Local recording of Zoom meetings is available to both free and paid subscribers. Local recording allows participants to record the meeting video and audio locally to the device they are using when in the meeting. The recorded files can be uploaded to any file storage service at the user’s convenience. These include Google Drive and Dropbox, or even a streaming service like YouTube or Vimeo.

The prerequisites for recording a Zoom meeting are a basic/free account and a Zoom desktop client for macOS, Windows, or Linux, version 2.0, or higher. It is important to note that local recording is not supported on iOS and Android. If you are using a mobile device, you will have to do cloud recording for paid accounts.

There are three types of methods to enable local recording: account, group, and user.

Account:

1. Log in to the Zoom web portal as an administrator with the privilege to edit any account settings.
2. In the navigation menu, click on User Management > Group Management.
3. Click on the name of the group, then click on the Settings tab.
4. In the Recording tab, head to the option that reads Local Recording and confirm that the setting is enabled.
5. Click on the toggle to enable the setting if it is disabled. If a verification dialogue displays, click on Turn On. But note that if the option is coloured grey,  it has been locked at your current account level, and needs to be changed at that level.

Group:

1. Log in to the Zoom web portal as an administrator with the privilege to edit any user groups.
2. In the navigation menu, click on User Management > Group Management.
3. Click on the name of the group, then click on the Settings tab.
4. In the Recording tab, head to the option that reads Local Recording and confirm that the setting is enabled.
5. Click on the toggle to enable the setting if it is disabled. If a verification dialogue displays, click on Turn On.

User:

1. Log in to the Zoom web portal.
2. Click on Settings.
3. In the Recording tab, head to the option that reads Local Recording and confirm that the setting is enabled.
4. Click on the toggle to enable the setting if it is disabled. If a verification dialogue displays, click on Turn On.

Starting a local recording:

The host must either record the meeting or give the ability to record the meeting to a participant.

1. As the host, start the Zoom meeting.
2. Click on the option to Record. If there is a drop-down menu, choose Record on this Computer.
3. Click on the Participants lists to view which participants are currently recording the meeting.
4. After you have ended the meeting, Zoom will automatically convert the recording so that you can easily access the files.
5. Once the conversion process is done, the folder that contains the recorded files will open on your device for you. Note that the audio/video file (MP4) will be named Zoom_0.mp4 by default.