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Live stream a video meeting for hosts


               

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Learn more about the updated live stream experience.

Important:
  • You can only start and stop a live stream through the computer.
  • If you're unable to live stream, make sure that your admin has enabled the feature. Learn more about host controls.
  • Viewers who join through the live stream link can view chat messages from in-meeting participants. They can't send chat messages.

This article only applies to meeting hosts and participants who join through the meeting link. For the viewer experience, go to View a live stream.

Learn which Google Workspace editions can live stream

In-house and cross-domain live streaming is available with these Google Workspace editions:

  • Enterprise Starter
  • Enterprise Plus
  • Enterprise Standard
  • Education Plus: This is available to users with a 'Staff' or 'Student' licence.
  • Teaching and Learning Upgrade: This is available to users with a 'Teaching and Learning Upgrade' licence.

Compare Google Workspace editions or learn about your available Meet features.

If live streaming is enabled for your work or school account, you can let people in your organisation watch your video meetings. With cross-domain live streaming, admins can also allow up to 50 different trusted Workspace sub-domains to join their live streams. The maximum number of live-stream viewers depends on your Google Workspace edition.

Tip: If you're a Google Workspace administrator who manages Google Meet for your organisation, first allow live streaming or set up cross-domain live streaming.

Who can view a live stream

Only guests in your organisation can watch live streams. If your admin turns on cross-domain live streaming, then guests in your organisation and in trusted Workspace domains can watch.

  • On a computer, all meeting participants in your organisation can stop and start the stream during the meeting and record the event.
  • Guests who watch through the live stream link can't control streaming and recording. Learn more at View a live stream.

Tip: Live stream organisers will see a viewer count at the top of their screen. The live stream counter will show every new viewer until the first 100 users. After 100 users, it will round to the nearest five.

Supported Meet browsers

You can use these browsers to view live stream meetings:

  • Chrome Browser
  • Microsoft® Edge®
  • Mozilla® Firefox®
  • Opera®
  • Apple® Safari®
What you can share through live stream with Meet
  • Real-time employee and staff training
  • Academic information with students
  • Conference materials that can't be shared in person
  • Organisation-wide presentations with multiple presenters
  • Guests may be designated as view-only

Set up a live stream with Google Meet

  1. In a meeting, at the bottom right, click Activities and then Live streaming and then Stream internally.

Tip: The live stream is only accessible to guests within your organisation. Get in touch with your Workspace admins to set up cross-domain live streaming.

  1. In the menu, select the language for captions.
  2. Click Start streaming.
  3. Share the live stream through a Copy streaming link. 

Tip: If you share the meeting code or URL, the user joins as a participant.

Set up a live stream with Google Calendar

Google Meet: Livestream a meeting

Part 1: Create a live-stream event

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. ClickCreateand theneventand thenMore options.
  3. Add the event details, such as date, time and description.
  4. Add the guests that can fully participate in the video meeting. 
    • All guests added to this event can be seen, heard and can present their screen.
    • People from other organisations and trusted domains can be added. Only people in your organisation can record and control streaming.
  5. Next to Join with Google Meet, click the down arrowand thenAdd live stream.
  6. Click Add live stream again to confirm.
  7. Click Saveand thenSend.
    Note: Streaming does not automatically start. During the meeting, at the bottom right, clickLive streamingand thenStart streaming.

Part 2: Create an additional event for view-only guests

To invite specific people to the view-only live stream, create a view-only event. The event is added to their calendar and includes the link for view-only guests.

People invited to this view-only event are not seen or heard in the meeting and can't present, record or control streaming.

Tip: If invited, view-only guests can join live streams even if their accounts don't support live streaming or their organisations have live streaming turned off.

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. Click the live stream event that you created and then Edit .
  3. At the top, click More actions and then Create view-only event.
  4. Add guests or rooms for view-only access and other details such as a description.
    1. To allow guests to join from their own Google Meet hardware rooms, make sure that guests have the permissions to modify events.
  5. Click Save and then Send.

Remove a live stream from a Google Calendar event

  1. Open Google Calendar.
  2. Click the live stream event and then Edit .
  3. Next to Join with Google Meet, click the down arrow and then Remove live stream.
  4. Click Save.

Tip: The meeting link changes when you add or remove live streaming. Be sure that you share the updated link with your guests.

Start and stop a live stream

If allowed by an administrator, any participant in the same organisation as the meeting organiser can start or stop the live stream. Live streams automatically stop after eight hours since live streams have an eight-hour time limit. 

You can start or stop a live stream if:

  • You're the organiser
  • You're in the same organisation as the organiser
  • An administrator allows you in the live stream
  • You join as a full participant

A view-only guest can only view and can't control the live stream.

  1. Open Google Calendar and join the video meeting.
  2. Select More  and then Start streaming.
  3. Confirm that you want to start streaming. 'Live' is indicated at the top left when streaming is on. View-only guests can now watch the meeting using the stream URL.
  4. Select More  and then Stop streaming.
  5. Confirm that you want to stop streaming.

Record a live-stream event

Full participants from the same organisation as the meeting organiser can record the live stream so that people can watch the event after the meeting ends. Live-stream events are not automatically recorded, so you must manually start and stop recording. Learn how to record a video meeting.

Guests who join 'view-only' cannot control recording.

Add captions to your live stream

To use captions for your live-stream event, meeting participants should first turn on live-stream captions from the main meeting. Live-stream captions will appear in the same language as set in the meeting and are available in English, German, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

For meeting participants:

  1. Join a meeting with live streaming turned on.
  2. At the bottom right, click Activities and then Live streaming.
  3. Select the language for captions from the menu and then click Start streaming.

Conduct a poll or Q&A in your live stream

Important: Hosts can disable Q&A for live stream participants from their computer.

When you create a Q&A or poll in a live stream, it's automatically available to both meeting participants and live stream participants.

View your live stream report

After a live stream, the meeting organiser receives an email with a Google Sheets report. Learn how to view your live stream report.

Related resources

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