Record a video meeting

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" license.
• Enterprise Essentials
• Enterprise Plus
• Enterprise Standard
• Enterprise Starter
• Google One subscribers with 2 TB or more storage space
• Teaching and Learning Upgrade. This is available to users with a “Teaching and Learning Upgrade” license.
• Workspace Individual Subscriber

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

1. On your computer, in Google Meet, click Start or Join.
2. At the bottom right, click Activities Recording.
   • To record the meeting captions, select a language.
   • In some cases, if the recording is played on Google Drive, the recording file might be ready a few hours before the captions are available.
3. Click Start recording.
4. In the pop-up screen, click Start.
5. Wait for the recording to start. Participants get a notification when the recording starts or stops.
   • Meetings can only be recorded for a total of 8 hours, then the recording stops automatically.
6. To stop a recording, click Activities Recording Stop recording.
7. In the pop-up screen, click Stop recording.
   • Tip: The recording stops automatically when everyone leaves the meeting.

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

The recording is saved to the meeting organizer’s My Drive > Meet Recordings folder.

For meetings created through:

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

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

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.

Important: Before you present from Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides, join the meeting to know 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 organizer’s Meet Recordings folder in My Drive. An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organizer 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 get notified when a recording starts or stops, but can’t control the recording:

• People outside of your organization
• 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 organizer'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.

Tips:

• 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 is generated.
• If a screen is shared in a recorded meeting, the video resolution depends on the resolution of the largest screen shared, which is up to 1080p. Admins can opt out of 1080p recordings for their organizations. For more info, go to Set recording quality limits for screen shares. 

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

Recordings save to the meeting organizer’s My Drive > Meet Recordings folder. However, if the organizer 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 Share .
2. 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:

1. Select the file and click More 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 .

An email with the recording link is sent to the meeting organizer 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 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 .

If the recording starts at the scheduled meeting time, the recording links to the Google Calendar event. Individual meeting participants in the same organization as the meeting organizer automatically get access to the recording. Groups don't automatically get access.