Change the default Zoom meetings recording folder

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Here’s a question we received the other day:

I have a Zoom unpaid account which i use for video meetings with friends and family. I just noticed that it is possible to record video and audio meetings. I guess i have a couple of very basic questions: first – where does those recorded meetings are stored, is it in the cloud or on my computer? If the latter, is there a way to specify where exactly i should be saving the files?

Thanks for the helpful question. Here’s our answer, hopefully you’ll find it helpful.

Default recording folder of Zoom meetings

As of today, it seems that cloud hosting of meetings recordings are available to paid Zoom accounts. A free Zoom account allows you to store your recordings in your computer.

Zoom video meetings are stored as MP4 files. The audio is saves as a separate m4a file (which you can later convert). Proceed as following to find where exactly is your Zoom recording.

  • Open the Zoom App.
  • Go to the Home tab and hit the cog in your top-right hand side.
  • Now select Settings.
  • Then go ahead and select the Recordings tab.
  • When installed, Zoom creates a Zoom folder in your Home Directory Documents folder. For each recording, Zoom automatically creates a folder clearly specifying the user name and time stamp and places the audio and video files there.

Change the Zoom recording location

As you can see below, i have slightly modified the recording location to a different folder, which i have manually created.

  • From Zoom Settings, select the Recordings tab.
  • Now in the Local Recording section, hit the Change button.
  • Use the file explorer to select an existing folder or hit New Folder to create a new location.
  • Once done, hit OK.
  • From now on, video and audio recordings will be kept in the new location. You might want to consider transferring existing meeting recordings to keep everything in one folder.

Backup Zoom Recordings

It is a good practice to periodically backup the Zoom recording folder either into OneDrive or an external Drive. You might also want to delete old recordings that are no longer needed.

Note: You can obviously use video editing software such as Camtasia or audio editors such as Audacity to easily edit and covert Zoom recordings as needed.

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