Record a video meeting

Important: Recording a meeting is only available on a computer.

How to record a video meeting in Google Meet

You can record video meetings with these Google Workspace editions:

Business Plus
Business Standard
Essentials
Education Plus. This is available to users with a 'Staff' or 'Student' licence
Enterprise Essentials
Enterprise Plus
Enterprise Standard
Enterprise Starter
Google One subscribers with 2 TB or more of storage space
Teaching and Learning Upgrade. This is available to users with a 'Teaching and Learning Upgrade' licence
Workspace Individual subscriber

Learn about your available Meet features.

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

Learn who can record a meeting

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

You can record if:

You're the meeting host.
You're from outside the host's organisation and promoted to a co-host.
You're from the host's organisation and Host Management is off.
You're a teacher or co-teacher for meetings created through Google Classroom.

Google Workspace for Education accounts:

Education Fundamentals or Education Standard accounts: Teachers/staff or students can record meetings that they organise.

Teaching and Learning Upgrade accounts: Anyone in the same organisation as the meeting organiser can record a meeting.

Education Plus: Teachers/staff or students can record meetings that they organise and meetings that are organised by someone in their organisation.

Tip: You can’t record a meeting if you join only to present. You should join the video meeting first, start your presentation and then record.

Learn what's recorded in a video meeting

Important: Before you present from Google Docs, Sheets or Slides, join the meeting to find out if it is being recorded.

Recordings include the active speaker and anything presented. You can also choose to record the meeting's captions. 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 are not included in the recording. Pinning a participant won't affect who is shown in the recording.

These people are 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

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 entire duration of the recorded video.

Where is a Meet chat saved?

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

How do I play Meet chat recordings?

You can play Meet chat recordings on media players. When recordings play on a media player like VLC Media Player, chat contents display as subtitles.

How do I play recorded captions?

If you record a meeting, select Record captions to embed captions in the clip.

If you play the recording in Google Drive via the YouTube player, you can click the closed caption button to play captions with the recording.
If you download the recording, you can play it and enable subtitles on apps like VLC Media Player or QuickTime Player.

Tip: If you record captions, the recording file might be ready before the captions are available, if played on Google Drive. The captions may become playable a few hours after the recording file has been generated.

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

Learn how to start and stop a recording

Important: Recording a meeting is only available on a computer.

Here's how to troubleshoot issues when you record a meeting.

Important: Recording video meetings is only available for meetings organised by certain Google Workspace editions.

Learn how to record a video meeting.

Learn why recording is disabled

Recording may be disabled if:

Your admin turned off recording.
Your Workspace edition doesn't support recording.
Your Google Drive is disabled.
You aren't allowed to record a specific video meeting.
You're in a breakout room. Breakout rooms don't support recordings.

Check with your admin to make sure that:

Meet supports recording for you and your organisation.
Recording is on for video meetings.

Can't find the recording button

Confirm that your admin has turned on recording for Meet in the Google Admin console.
Verify that you're using Meet on a computer. Recording is only available for the computer version.
You can't record if you join only to present, such as from a laptop whilst already in a video conference room. Join the video meeting first, start presenting and then record.
You can't record if the meeting was created on a conference room device (such as Meet hardware) or was generated by another process, such as a Chrome plug in. Schedule the meeting in Calendar or be sure that a person and not a device starts any ad-hoc meetings.
If you can no longer record a recurring meeting that used to allow recording, make sure that the meeting organiser's account hasn't been disabled, which also disables recordings for the meetings that they have organised. To fix this, delete the meeting from the calendar event, save it and add a new meeting code to recreate a meeting as the new owner.

Can't find the recording

Recordings must be generated and are not immediately available after the recording has ended.
When ready, an email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organiser and the person who started the recording.
The recording link is also added to the calendar event and saved to the meeting organiser's Meet recordings folder in My Drive.

I used to be able to record a meeting but I'm unable to record it today

Check with your admin to make sure that they have turned on recording for video meetings. Learn more about recording a video meeting.

My recording in Google Drive says 'Still processing'

'Still processing' means that the recording is still being prepared to view.
To play the recording immediately, select the file and click More Download . Double-click the downloaded file on your computer.

What happens to my existing recordings after the COVID-19 features expire for my organisation?

Recordings will continue to be available in Drive.

I shared the recording with someone but they can't download it

Make sure that you allow others to download your files:

Open Google Drive.
Select the recording file and click Share or Share .
At the bottom right, click Advanced.
Untick the box next to 'Disable options to download, print and copy for commenters and viewers'.
Click Save changes Done.

Related resources:

Meetings can only be recorded for up to eight hours. After eight hours, the meeting will automatically stop recording.

Start or join a meeting in Google Meet.
At the bottom right, click activities Recording.
- To also record the meeting captions, select a language for the captions.
- In some cases, the recording file might be ready before the captions are available, if the recording is played on Google Drive. The captions may become playable a few hours after the recording file has been generated.
Click Start recording.
In the window that opens, click Start.
Wait for the recording to start. Participants are notified when the recording starts or stops.
To stop a recording, click activities Recording Stop recording.
In the window that opens, click Stop recording.
- Tip: The recording stops automatically when participants leave the meeting.

The recording is saved to the meeting organiser's My Drive > Meet recordings folder. An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organiser and the person who started the recording.

For meetings created through:

Google Calendar: The meeting organiser is the user who creates the meeting event in Google Calendar.
The Meet homepage or another product such as Gmail or Jamboard: The meeting organiser is the person who launches the meeting or generates the code.

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:

Select the file Share .
Or, click Link paste the link in an email or chat message.

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

Select the file and click More Download .
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.

In the email, click the link and wait for the recording to open.
Select an option:
- To play the recording, click Play .
- To share the recording, click More Share. 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. Individual meeting participants in the same organisation as the meeting organiser automatically get access to the recording. Groups don't automatically get access.

Make sure that your Google Drive has enough space

Google Meet recordings are uploaded to the organiser's Google Drive. Make sure that there's enough space on your Drive to record your meeting.

To record a meeting, make sure:

You haven't reached your personal Drive quota.
Your organisation hasn't reached its Drive quota.

If you have space in your Drive, but your organisation doesn't have space, you can't record the meeting.

Important: Once you reach your storage quota, you get an alert on Meet. We recommend that you keep track of your available storage space through Google Drive or Google storage page.

For Workspace editions with Admin capabilities: If you reach your storage quota, contact your Google Workspace administrator.