Where Is My Zoom Video Recording?

Oh Zoom Recording, Where Are You?

​In this blog, we'll teach you how to find your Zoom video recordings. Certainly, recording a Zoom meeting only to be questioning where it’s located after you're done can be a scary thing, especially if like, you really can't find it! Keep reading to learn all the locations where you can find the Zoom recording.

Zoom Recordings Not Showing Up 

​You've recorded a Zoom meeting, but it's not showing up or converting into a file. Ahhhh! Let us help you learn how to find your Zoom recordings.

​Before You Begin Your Zoom Meeting

​Zoom provides the ability to record your Zoom meetings, whether you want to save them for content creation, trainings, future webinar opt-ins or other uses. Zoom provides two options for recording - Local recording and Cloud-recording. Local recording saves recordings to your desktop or laptop and local recording is available for Zoom users with the free account as well as paid accounts. Cloud recording saves recordings to Zoom's cloud service and cloud recording is only available for paid Zoom accounts.
 
To enable local recording, log into Zoom's web portal, this is your Zoom account (you must have admin privileges, meaning it's your Zoom account and you're not just a participant).
 
First click on My Account, then Account Management on the left side, then Account Settings, and then navigate to the Recording tab. Click the button to Enable Local Recording (it will turn from gray to blue when enabled). You'll also see the option to give participants the option to record locally. We personally like to control who and what is being recorded, especially if it's for a training that may be sold later or provided as valued content. Scroll down a tad and you'll also want to consider turning on the Automatic recording option, which will automatically start local recording of your meetings. We also recommend that you turn on the recording notifications option, which provides a voice prompt alerting participants that the meeting is being recorded.
 
If you have a paid account, you'll also be given the option to enable cloud recording. Each Zoom license is given up to 1 GB of cloud storage. Inside your Account Settings, Recording tab, simply click the bubble to initiate cloud recording. With paid accounts, you're able to have both local and cloud recording options selected. Below the cloud recording option, feel free to explore all the many options to customize your cloud recording experience. Additionally, you'll now have the option to automatically record using either your local computer or recording in the cloud. You can only select one for automatic recording. Automatic recording is helpful, should you forget to click the record button once inside a meeting.
 
Now that you've enabled recording in Zoom's web portal, you'll want to jump into the Zoom desktop client application, start that up and then click into the Settings window, then into the Recording tab. Here, you'll be able to select the location where the local Zoom recordings will be stored, so go ahead and select that location. We recommend creating a folder in your documents or wherever you store files, a folder dedicated for Zoom recordings only.
 
By default, local recordings will be placed in the following directory depending on the machine you're using. At this time, local recording is not supported on iOS and Android devices:
Windows: C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\Zoom
Mac: /Users/[Username]/Documents/Zoom
Linux: home/[Username]/Documents/Zoom
 
Also on this screen, you'll also have a few more options to customize your recording experience. We recommend that you select the option to optimize for 3rd party video editor, which formats the video into a standard widescreen canvas. This will make it easier for you to import into a video editor but it will also increase the file size as well as the processing time for those clips. We also like to have this one checked to record video during screen sharing so it's capturing everything being displayed during the meeting.
 
Make sure to exit your Zoom desktop client application and restart once you have updated these settings so that all new settings are processed and ready for you to begin.

​During Your Zoom Meeting

​Alright, now let's jump inside an actual Zoom meeting. Once inside, click on the Record Button and select to either Record on this computer or record to the cloud. You'll know when you're recording when you see the Recording icon in the upper left corner, pulsating like record buttons do. And if you selected the recording notifications, you'll hear a voice notification.
 
Now, with your meeting recording, you'll have the option to pause the recording by clicking pause either in the corner or down in the tool bar. This will pause the recording, allowing you to resume recording at a later time in the meeting.
 
When you are ready to Stop recording, click on Stop recording. If recording locally, the recording will stop. If recording on the cloud, you'll be prompted to confirm to stop recording. Once you have stopped recording, Zoom will wrap that recording up into its own recorded file. If you wish to record again, click on record and select your preference to begin recording again.
 
Now, in order to actually process these recorded clips, you'll need to End the meeting for all. Upon ending the meeting, if recording locally, the folder where the file is being stored will open up on your desktop. If recording to the cloud, upon ending your meeting, you'll see a window notification showing your video processing. Once Zoom has finished processing the cloud recording, you'll be sent an email with a link to your cloud recording. Keep in mind, if you start and stop a recording during a meeting, then start a new recording and stop it, you'll end up with two separate files pertaining to each of those recordings.
 

After Your Zoom Meeting Has Recorded 

​If you recorded locally, you'll be able to access those files on your computer inside the folder you selected from the steps earlier. If you recorded to the cloud, you'll be able to access those files on Zoom's web portal. Simply click on My Account, then click into the Recordings tab. Then under Cloud Recordings, you'll be able to access those recordings.
 
Additionally, you can access your recorded files inside the Zoom desktop client application. From the home screen, click up top on Meetings, then onto Recorded. This will list out all of your recordings. If you recorded locally, you'll have several options to interact with your recording. If you recorded to the cloud, you'll only have the option to Open the recording, which will launch a browser window with your recording inside.

​Troubleshooting Tips

Again, local recording is not available on iOS and Android devices.

Recordings are only processed after the meeting ends.

You've ended a meeting, but haven't seen your recording appear yet. This can be due to a few factors. Perhaps the length of your meeting spanned an hour or more, the recording could still be processing, in which case you'll just have to wait. You'll want to be sure a recording has finished processing prior to sharing it with anyone else, because if it's still processing and someone is trying to access it, they won't be able to do so.

If a recording hasn't been converted yet, go into your Zoom desktop client application, click on Meetings, then onto Recorded. Locate your meeting and if you see a button for Convert, click that button to begin converting it to a file.

Should you have automatic recording enabled, you must start the meeting from the desktop client application. Automatic recordings will not initiate from mobile devices.

If you were the host, but not the account admin, the admin may have disabled the ability for meeting hosts to access their cloud recordings, if this is the case, please check with your administrator.

If you're still unable to locate Zoom recordings, check with your administrator to ensure they don't have the Auto delete recordings option turned on.

If the meeting unexpectedly shuts down or if the conversion process is interrupted, the recording files could become corrupted and non-recoverable. Restarting or shutting down your computer, putting the hard disk to sleep, or closing your laptop will interrupt the conversion process.

This one is not directly related to locating recordings, however, Zoom video recordings are known to be out of sync, typically by 6 frames or so. Should you want to properly sync them together, we recommend hiring a video editor to manually sync them up.

Additionally, should you want to streamline your Zoom recordings, we recommend exploring Zoom apps which help you store, organize, search and gain insight from your saved Zoom recordings, such as automatically saving recordings to Google Drive and more. 

Watch Our Video: Zoom Recordings Not Showing Up