Getting started with recording

At one time or another you will probably want to record your meeting or webinar for training, legal, or any other purposes.

Need to catch up on a long meeting or webinar? Smart Recording allows you to get the key takeaways in a quick and digestible format through recording highlights, and identify action items to take after the meeting or webinar with next steps.

Get Started

Zoom has two types of recordings, local recording and cloud recording. Local recordings, which come standard with all Zoom accounts, are saved to your computer. Cloud recordings, included with all paid accounts, are saved to the Zoom Cloud where they can be viewed, shared, and downloaded.

Both options provide standard MP4 video, M4A audio, and chat text files.

This article covers:

• Start recording
• Your local recording
• Your cloud recording

Prerequisites for local or cloud recording

Make sure you meet the prerequisites for local or cloud recording before following this article.

Start recording

After starting your meeting, 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 asking where you want to record: Record on this Computer or Record to the Cloud. You’ll know recording has begun because a red light will appear in the upper left corner of your Zoom window with the words “Recording.”

• Click on the pause icon if you want to pause the recording.

• Click on the start icon when you are ready to resume recording.

• Click on the stop icon when you’re ready to stop the recording.

Your local recording

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

Your cloud recording

Your cloud recordings are stored in the Zoom cloud. They are in your Recording tab of your Zoom web portal, which you can password protect, share, and download. This feature is off by default, and is available to paid Zoom Pro, Business, Education, and Enterprise plan subscribers. One great thing about cloud recording is that you can do it from your mobile device, Zoom Room, as well as your desktop.