Teams Meetings: How to Record a Meeting

Summary

Any Teams meeting or call can be recorded for future viewing. The recording captures audio, video, and screen-sharing activity, and you can share it securely across your organization.

A recording will expire and be automatically deleted after a set period of time. The length of time it's available is set by our Microsoft Admins, but you can change the expiration date of any given recording. This article walks through how recording works in Teams Meetings.

Notes:

  • Meeting recordings won't capture whiteboards, annotations, shared notes, or content shared in the stage view by apps, and also won't include videos or animations embedded in PowerPoint Live presentations.
  • When you view a meeting recording, you'll see no more than four people's video streams at once.

Table of Contents:

 

Start recording

When you start recording a meeting, you also turn on live transcriptions 

Step 1 - Start or join the meeting.

Step 2 - Go to the meeting controls and select More actions > select Record and transcribe, then select Start recording.

record meeting in Teams.png

 

Everyone in the meeting gets notified that recording and transcription have started.

Image showing the full notification you see once you start recording a Teams meeting.

 

Notes:

  • You can not make multiple recordings of the same meeting at the same time.
  • If one person starts recording a meeting, that recording will be stored on the cloud and available to all participants.
  • Meeting participants have the option of viewing the transcription during the meeting. For details, see view live transcription 

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Stop recording

Step 1 - Go to the meeting controls select More actions and select Record and Transcribe

Step 2 - Choose one of the following:

  • Stop recording: Stops the recording and live transcription.
  • Stop transcription: Stops just the live transcription. The recording continues until you select Stop recording.

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Find recordings

Recordings are available in different places depending on the type of meeting.

  • The recording is processed and saved to SharePoint if it was a channel meeting or OneDrive if it was any other type of meeting.
  • The meeting recording shows up in the meeting chat or channel conversation (if you’re meeting in a channel).

Note: For now, guests and external attendees can view the recording only if it's explicitly shared with them. 

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Who can start or stop a recording?

Anyone who meets the following criteria can start or stop a recording, even if the meeting organizer isn't present, as long as the meeting organizer has their cloud recording policy setting turned on. This is as long as the user isn't a guest or from another organization.

Type of user

Can start recording?

Can stop recording?

Meeting organizer

  • Yes

  • Yes

Person from same org

  • Yes

  • Yes

Person from another org or company

  • No

  • No

Guest

  • No

  • No

Anonymous

  • No

  • No

Notes: 

  • Recording continues even if the person who started the recording has left the meeting.
  • The recording stops automatically once everyone leaves the meeting. If someone forgets to leave, the recording automatically ends after four hours.
  • If one of the participants has a policy for compliance recording, the meeting will be recorded according to the policy even if that participant is from another org.

See Roles in Teams meetings  for details about selecting presenters and changing someone's role before and during a meeting. 

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Manage the expiration of a meeting recording

Our Microsoft admin's settings determine whether (and when) a recording will expire. If your recording has an expiration date, you'll see a message indicating that when the recording pops into the meeting chat after the meeting ends. 

Image showing "recording is about to expire" message.

 

Step 1 - Open the details pane to view or change the expiration date.

There are a couple of different ways to get there:

  1. Click on the recording to open it in your browser. Once the browser page has opened, select Info icon in the upper right to open the details pane.
  2. Or, go to My files in your OneDrive or SharePoint site and view it as a list. Mouse over the recording in question, select Show actions (the three vertical dots to the right of the file name), and then choose Details. If you ever have issues locating recordings, if you were the Organizer of the meeting check your My Recordings folder. 

Step 2 - When the details pane is open, look for Expiration date. Here's where you see the date that is currently set. 

Details pane showing recording expiration date

 

Step 3 - Open the drop-down to see your options for changing the date. Extend the recording's availability for a certain number of days, or pick a specific date on the calendar. You can also choose No expiration if you don't want it to be deleted.

Drop-down menu for recording expiration date

 

Notes: 

  • The message indicating that your recording will expire will persist on the recording in the chat even if you remove the expiration date. But don't worry — if you've selected No expiration, it won't expire
  • The owner of the recording will get an email when it expires. At that point, they'll have up to 90 days to recover it from the recycle bin. Once recovered, the recording will no longer expire automatically
  • Watching the recording won't affect the expiration date

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Privacy Settings

When a meeting recording starts, Teams shows a notification to all participants on the Teams desktop, web, and mobile apps, as well as to people who joined via phone.

In some places, you legally need to get everyone's permission before you can record them. Make sure you know the rules before you start. For more information, see the Microsoft Privacy Statement.

The person who initiates the recording is the owner. Only the owner can delete the recording.

Type of recording

Permission to view

Permission to download

Channel meeting

Team

User with view permission

Private meeting

Invited and attended users (chat members)

User with view permission

Group call

Chat members

User with view permission

One-to-one call

Chat members

User with view permission

One-to-one PSTN (telephone) call

Teams user

Teams user

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Troubleshoot recordings

If you're having problems recording a meeting, you will probably need the help of an IT admin to work through them. Keep these things in mind as you move forward:

  • An IT admin must provide a recording license to both the meeting organizer and the recorder.
  • Guests or federated users can't record meetings or calls.

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Further Readings 

Microsoft Support - Teams Meetings Recording

Microsoft Support - Teams Meetings live transcriptions support 

Microsoft Support - Roles in a Teams meeting 

Microsoft Support - Privacy Statement

 

Need additional help?

For assistance concerning site creation, content sharing, file synchronization, or other common SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, or Office app activities, we recommend our Microsoft 365 Learning sites:

Learn more about the great tools our Microsoft 365 Learning sites offer!

Visit the Technology Help Desk Support page to locate your local campus contact information or to submit an online technology support request.  For password issues you must call or visit the Help Desk in person.