How to automatically record all Zoom meetings

Many remote work teams rely on recording Zoom meetings to review important discussions and ensure company goals are aligned among all employees. For this reason, automatic recording is an important feature that ensures that you don’t accidentally forget to press the record button and lose all that valuable information.

Fortunately, you can automatically record meetings in Zoom. This article will go over all the different methods to ensure your Zoom meeting is perfect.

Enable automatic recording locally and in the cloud

Zoom facilitates automatic local and cloud recordings. Local recording is available for free users and paid subscribers, but free users can only record and save files to their PC, laptop, or Mac. Recording can capture meeting video and audio, participant names, timestamps and other elements that the person recording can see.

On the other hand, paid subscribers (Pro, Business, and Education accounts) can record meetings and webinars using the Zoom app on their Android or iOS devices and save them to the cloud. Additionally, they can record the active speaker, gallery view, screen sharing, and use audio transcription and other cloud recording options.

For all account users

Zoom allows you to add multiple users to your Zoom account and assign them different roles (owner, administrator, or member). That said, you can only allow automatic recording to all users of an account if you are an administrator with the ability to edit the account settings.

To do so, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your account on the Zoom web portal.
   
2. In the navigation menu, select “Settings.”
   
3. Click on the “Recording” section.
   
4. Tap the moving knob next to “Automatic Recording” to enable the setting.
   
5. Confirm the pop-up verification by selecting “Activate”.
   
6. Depending on your subscription, you can choose “Record to the cloud” or “Record to local computer.” Be sure to enable “Host can pause/stop automatic cloud recording” if you opt for cloud recording.
   

Note:For cloud recordings, there is a limit of 150 files per live session. A new file is created by stopping and starting a new recording, not pausing. Additionally, cloud recordings typically take twice as much recorded time to process a recording.

For group users

You can also enable automatic recording for a group of users. This is how you do it:

1. Sign in to your account on the Zoom web portal.
   
2. Click “User Management” in the navigation menu.
   
3. Tap “Groups.”
   
4. Select the name of the group you want to allow automatic recording to.
5. Go to “Recording”.
   
6. Enable “Automatic Recording” by tapping the moving knob.
   
7. Confirm the change by clicking “Activate” if a pop-up verification appears.
8. Choose between “Record to local computer” and “Record to the cloud.” Be sure to enable “Host can pause/stop automatic cloud recording” if you opt for cloud recording.
   
9. Confirm your choices by tapping “Save.”

Note:If you want to be the only one who can change this setting, you can click the lock icon and then “Lock.”

For you

If you want to automatically record meetings or webinars just for you, simply follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your account on the Zoom web portal.
   
2. Tap “Settings” in the navigation menu.
   
3. Go to “Recording”.
   
4. Enable “Automatic Recording” by tapping the moving knob.
   
5. Enable the setting in the pop-up menu.

Note:If the option is greyed out, it means your administrator has blocked the option for your group or account. To enable it, you will need to contact your Zoom administrator.

1. Choose between “Record to local computer” and “Record to the cloud.” Be sure to enable “Host can pause/stop automatic cloud recording” if you opt for cloud recording.
   .

Note:The new settings will apply only to your future meetings. If you want to enable this setting for already scheduled meetings and meetings with your personal meeting ID, you will need to enable automatic recording manually for each meeting.

For inpidual meetings

To enable automatic recording for a particular meeting, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your Zoom account on the Zoom web portal.
   
2. Go to “Meetings” in the navigation menu.
   
3. Select “Meeting” in the “Coming Soon” section. You can also click “Schedule a meeting.”
   
4. If you choose the first option, click “Edit” below.
   
5. Find “Options” and tap the checkbox next to “Automatically record meeting.”
   
6. Here you can choose to save the recording “On the local computer” or “In the cloud”.

Note:Enabling automatic recording for an inpidual meeting is available even if your administrator has not enabled the setting.

Without the host

The option to automatically record all Zoom meetings without the host is only available for cloud recordings. To record a cloud meeting without the host, enable automatic cloud recording as described above or enable the “Join before host” option before scheduling a meeting.

If you want to record locally without a host, they will need to give you permission to do so or configure it as an alternate host.

Frequent questions

How to turn off automatic recording in Zoom

You can stop automatically recording Zoom meetings and webinars by following the steps outlined above.

When does automatic recording start in Zoom?

Automatic cloud recording in Zoom will begin when the host joins the meeting. The host can also initiate automatic cloud recording using “Allow participants to join at any time,” which allows participants to join the meeting or webinar before the host. For local recording, the Zoom meeting will only start recording once the host joins.

Can you share Zoom recordings?

You can share local Zoom recordings by uploading them to Dropbox, Google Drive, or other third-party storage platforms. As for cloud recordings, you can share them by sending the link to other users. You can set a password to limit access to the link, share it with everyone or only specific people, set an expiration date, and allow others to edit, download, or view the video/audio transcript, if any.

Can others see that I am recording a Zoom meeting?

Zoom always informs all participants that a meeting or webinar is being recorded. For desktop users, this will be displayed in the form of a disclaimer asking if you want to continue to or leave a meeting that is being recorded. For mobile users, there will be a sound at the beginning indicating that the meeting is being recorded or a consent disclaimer asking you to press “1” if you want to join a recorded meeting.

Optimize your Zoom meetings with automatic recording

Automatically recording all your Zoom meetings and webinars saves you the time and effort of enabling settings before each meeting. If you follow the instructions in this article, you’ll have one less item on your to-do list and you won’t have to worry about forgetting to hit the record button before the meeting starts.

Have you already recorded a Zoom meeting? Did you follow the steps in this article to enable automatic recording settings? Tell us in the comments section below.