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You know the importance of leveraging tools like Zoom to facilitate seamless communication and collaboration. Recording Zoom meetings can maximize the value of these discussions, whether for archiving purposes, sharing with absent team members, or reviewing key points.
While Zoom has a built-in recording feature, there are better options available. In this guide, we’ll explain how to record a Zoom meeting using three ways different methods and propose alternative solutions to the Zoom app's built-in recording feature.
Why you should record your Zoom meetings
Recordings of Zoom meetings are great tools to share content, recall information, and help build on past learnings. Some examples of how you can leverage recorded video from Zoom include:
Sharing the results of a town hall or annual general meeting with a wider audience
Sharing a webinar with attendees or registrants who couldn’t make it
Building training content for future employees, customers, or partners
Collecting snippets to build marketing or sales content
Sharing the meeting’s discussions with another relevant party
How to record a Zoom meeting as the host
Recording as the host is the easiest and most straightforward approach. Once you’ve started the meeting, you can start the recording anytime. When you’re the host, the 'Record' icon is on the Zoom meeting window's menu bar near the middle right, accompanied by a concentric circle icon. Click this button once to start recording.
If you’re muted when you launch the recording feature, you can choose to unmute yourself and record with the audio or remain muted to create a recorded video without audio.
When the recording is started, you’ll see two changes:
What used to be the ‘Record’ icon is now two different buttons. These buttons are to either ‘Pause’ or ‘Stop’ the recording. Pausing the recording allows you to resume it later, all within the same recorded video. Stopping the recording means it will completely end, and if you press ‘Record’ again, it will create a new file. You will likely want to press ‘Pause’ to keep the recording in one file.
In the top left corner, you’ll see a red dot. This is present whenever you’re actively recording. You can also access more ‘Pause’ and ‘Stop’ buttons near the red dot, which have the same purpose as above.
Note: If you end the meeting at any time while you’re the host, the recording will automatically stop. By default, it will save to your computer anytime the recording stops.
These instructions are for the Zoom app. If you're using the Zoom web portal, recording settings can be found in 'Settings' in the navigation menu. From there, click the 'Recording' tab.
How to record a Zoom meeting with host permission
Recording with host permission is nearly the same as when you’re the host. There are a few ways to get host permissions:
The host may give you permission to record on Zoom by adding you as a co-host before the call.
The host can change your permissions mid-meeting.
You can press “Share Screen” to prompt a request to become a co-host, which the original host can then approve. The “Share Screen” button is universally available on everyone’s Zoom meeting menu, but oddly enough, only hosts can use this feature. As such, when you attempt to use the feature, it will request a higher permissions level from the host. Once you can access “Share Screen,” you’ll be granted access to record on this higher permissions level. The “Record” button will appear, and you can follow the steps as if you are the host.
How to record Zoom meetings without host permission
Without host permission, you'll need to learn how to record Zoom meetings as a participant. In this case, you should leverage third-party screen recording tools or an AI meeting assistant like Fellow.
Tools vary greatly in price, features, and integration. Some tools may record everything that happens on your screen, whether you’re on the Zoom call or switching to other tabs. Other methods will only record the active speaker. Make sure whichever tool you choose has a function that informs attendees that they are being recorded before you begin recording. For privacy reasons, always keep your attendees in the loop if they are being recorded and let them know through which specific platform(s).
For a seamless experience beyond just recording, consider an all-in-one AI meeting recording, transcription, and management software like Fellow.
Upgrade your Zoom recordings with Fellow
Fellow is an all-in-one AI meeting assistant that allows you to record, summarize, and transcribe all of your Zoom meetings.
With Fellow's advanced AI features and seamless integration with Zoom, you even automate action items based on the conversation. All linked to your calendar events, Fellow centralizes the entire meeting workflow into one functional hub, so any stakeholders can easily access meeting recordings, transcripts, and summaries later in one place. Fellow can also help reduce Zoom fatigue by allowing anyone to skip a meeting and access it later without missing context, decisions, or next steps.
Fellow’s app for Zoom also brings your meeting notes and agendas into a convenient panel in meetings, making it easy to control the recording settings before and during the meeting. You just have to show up and your meeting agenda and notes will be there, right within the Zoom window.
As well, Fellow provides support before and after your meeting. Before a Zoom call, Fellow prompts attendees to contribute to a collaborative agenda and sends a pre-meeting brief. After, Fellow sends an automated AI recap and you can use Ask Fellow to ask any questions about your meetings, like a ChatGPT for Zoom calls.
Recording Zoom meetings has never been easier. Get with Fellow.
Never take meeting notes again. Fellow auto-joins your video calls to get you the most accurate transcripts, summaries, and action items from your meetings.
