Record a video meeting

You can record video meetings with these Google Workspace editions:

  • Essentials
  • Business Standard
  • Business Plus
  • Enterprise Essentials
  • Enterprise Standard
  • Enterprise Plus 
  • Education Fundamentals (available to users with a 'teacher' licence)
  • Education Plus (available to users with a 'teacher' or 'student' licence)

Compare Google Workspace editions.

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Tip: If you’re a Google Workspace administrator who manages Google Meet for your organisation, first allow meeting recording.

Who can record a meeting

You can record video meetings for other people to watch later. 

To record a meeting, a Google Workspace administrator must turn on recording for your account.

You can record if:

  • You’re the meeting organiser
  • You’re in the same organisation as the organiser
  • You’re a teacher signed in to your Google Workspace account, but not a student

Learn about your available Meet features.

What’s recorded in a video meeting

As a best practice, it’s always good to inform other meeting participants before you start recording.

Recordings include the active speaker and anything that’s presented. Recordings are saved to the organiser’s Meet recordings folder in My drive. An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organiser and the person who started the recording. The link is added to the Calendar event.

Other windows or notifications aren't included. Pinning a participant won’t affect who is shown in the recording.

These people get notified when a recording starts or stops, but can’t control the recording:

  • People outside of your organisation
  • Mobile app users
  • People who dial in using a phone 

If a participant turns on Live Captions during recording, the captions won't be recorded and don't open when you play the recording.

Important: When meetings are recorded, the chat conversation log is also saved.

Which part of a Meet chat is recorded?

Chats are recorded for the duration of the video.

Where is a Meet chat saved? 

Chats are saved as an SBV file in the meeting organiser's Drive.

How do I play a transcript?

Transcript playback capabilities depend on the media player that you use. Chat contents are displayed as subtitles when files are downloaded in a media player such as VLC. 

When to record meetings 

Recording meetings is useful when you want to review the meeting later or share it with people who couldn’t attend. For example:

  • Team presentations available on demand for students and new employees
  • Conference presentations that you want to share with people later
  • Virtual training sessions that people can replay on demand

Start and stop a recording

Important: Recording is only available with the computer version of Meet. Mobile app users are notified when the recording starts or stops but cannot control recording.

You can’t record if you join the meeting only to present, such as from a laptop while already in a video conference room. Join the video meeting first, start your presentation and then record.

  1. Open Meet and then Start or Join a meeting.
  2. Click More and thenRecord meeting.
  3. Wait for the recording to start. 
    Other participants are notified when the recording starts or stops.
  4. When you're finished, click More and thenStop recording.
    • The recording also stops when everyone leaves the meeting.
  5. Click Stop recording again to verify.
  6. Wait for the recording file to be generated and saved to the meeting organiser’s My drive > Meet recordings folder. 
  7. An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organiser and the person who started the recording.

Play, share, download or save a recording

In Google Drive

Recordings save to the meeting organiser’s My drive > Meet recordings folder. However, if the organiser changes or if the meeting occurs outside of the scheduled Calendar time, the recording link is sent to the original event creator.

To share a recording:

  1. Select the file and then Share Add approver . 
  2. Or, click Link "" and then paste the link in an email or chat message.

For best results, download the recording and then play it from your computer:

  1. Select the file and click More Moreand then Download "". 
  2. Double-click the downloaded file to play it.
    • In Drive, double-click the recording to play it. 'Still processing' appears until the file is ready for online viewing.

To add a recording to My drive, select the file and click Add to My drive "".

From an email link

An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organiser and the person who started the recording.

  1. In the email, click the link and wait for the recording to open.
  2. Select an option:
    • To play the recording, click Play "" .
    • To share the recording, click More Moreand thenShare. Enter usernames or email addresses and click Done. 

Tip: You can also copy and share a link.

To download the file, click Download.

To add the recording to the current folder, click Add to My drive "".

In the Google Calendar event

If the recording starts at the scheduled meeting time, the recording links to the Google Calendar event. Meeting participants in the same organisational unit as the meeting organiser are automatically granted access to the recording. This only applies to meetings created via a Google Calendar. 

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