Not legal advice. This site is an editorial reference. Laws change — always confirm with a qualified attorney in the relevant jurisdiction before recording, and check each page’s last reviewed date.

How to Record a Zoom Call

Zoom’s host can record any meeting locally or to the cloud. Non-hosts can request recording permission. Zoom plays an audible announcement and shows a banner when recording starts.

Native option

Host: start a recording

  1. Start or join a meeting as host.
  2. Click Record in the bottom toolbar.
  3. Choose Record on this Computer (local) or Record to the Cloud (paid plans).
  4. An announcement plays to all participants: “This meeting is being recorded.” A red REC indicator appears at the top of each participant’s screen.
  5. Click Stop recording when finished. A second announcement plays.

Non-host: request permission

A participant can ask the host to grant them recording permission. The host opens Participants, hovers over the participant, clicks More, and selects Allow Record. The participant can then start a local recording.

Administrator: enable or require recording

An organization administrator can configure recording for the account: forcing announcements, restricting who may record, requiring cloud-only or local-only, and controlling retention. These settings live under Account Management → Account Settings → Recording.

Workarounds

1. Screen recording on participant’s end

If the host has not allowed recording, a participant can still capture the meeting via OS-level screen recording (macOS Cmd-Shift-5, Windows Game Bar, OBS). This bypasses Zoom’s built-in recording controls and Zoom’s in-app announcement.

  • Quality: Good for video; depends on audio routing.
  • Notified: No — Zoom does not detect OS-level recording.
  • Legal note: This is the riskiest path. Many jurisdictions treat covert recording of a video meeting as the same as covert recording of a phone call, and the absence of the in-app announcement does not insulate the recorder. Get consent.

2. Audio-only side recording

A second device pointed at the speakers, or audio capture from the system’s output. Same legal analysis as above.

Where the recording lives and how to export it

  • Local recording: by default in Documents/Zoom/[meeting date and topic]/. The file is converted from .zoom to .mp4 after the meeting ends; do not delete the source files before conversion completes.
  • Cloud recording: in the Zoom web portal under Recordings. Default retention varies by plan; admins can set retention from 1 day to forever.

Common failure modes

  • Record button greyed out. Account admin has restricted recording; ask the admin.
  • Local file never finishes converting. Reopen Zoom client; convert manually from the Recordings tab.
  • Cloud recording missing. Check retention setting; cloud recordings may be auto-deleted.
  • Participant audio missing. Audio that did not transit Zoom (e.g., the participant’s system audio not shared) is not in the recording.

Legal reminder

Whether you may record a call — with this platform or any other — depends on the law in every jurisdiction whose participants are on the call. See our jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction directory, the one-party vs. all-party explainer, and our consent script templates. Federal US law and most US states permit a participant to record, but thirteen US states and many countries require all-party consent.

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