So many people ask me where are Microsoft teams recordings stored?
Introduction to recording calls in Teams
Table of Contents
Before I look at the question where are Microsoft teams recordings stored, i will first look at how to record a meeting. If you got this far by yourself feel free to skip to the end of this post.
If you are interested in how painful recording calls was then please have a look at my original post about recording in Teams.
Recording calls isn’t too difficult, but so many people struggle to find the Microsoft Teams recording afterwards. If you can’t find the recording make sure that you are patient. It does take a while for the recordings to be processed.
Time to start a meeting and get that Microsoft Teams recording of my meeting done.
Starting a meeting
I started by setting up a meeting with myself in Microsoft Teams. In my case I created a new team so that I didn’t have anybody else in the team who could possibly interrupt my call.
I added both a test user account and myself to the team so that I can organise a meeting with my two user accounts. One of my two sessions now runs in the Microsoft Teams app and the other one runs in the browser.
You might have to mute your sessions when you do this as multiple sessions might pick up each other’s noise.
Record your meeting
While I’m logged in as my test user I just started my call and I quite quickly joined as myself and the option to record the call is there. Not much harder as clicking on the Start recording button.
When I look at the same as my test user I also see the record option.
If you don’t see the recording button then you might find that your administrator has set a policy to disable the recording feature. For more Details on this please have a look at 10 Policies to consider when implementing Microsoft Teams.
Guest Users
Now I’m going to join a 3rd time using my company account as a guest to the team. I now don’t have a record option available?
Why? It’s time to have a look at how the recording works first.
As one of my internal accounts I started recording the meeting. Microsoft Teams will now give you a warning that you should inform people that thew call is recorded.
The other people on the call will receive a slightly different message.
Internal users in Microsoft Teams
All internal users will now have the option to stop the recording. This is a bit weird, isn’t it? The reason behind this will become clear soon.
When you stop the recording there will be a message that appears in the conversation for the team that you’ve organised the meeting in. The recording will be saved.
After a while you will see that the recording appears in the conversation as a recording. If you are part of the tenant of the meeting organiser then you can click on the link and it is easy to find the recording.
Where are Microsoft Teams recordings stored?
So, where are Microsoft teams recordings stored? To find the recording seems to be difficult, even though a link may appear in teams after the meeting.
Looking at the search statistics of my original post show how often people wonder where these recordings end up. A quick look in the ellipses menu of the Microsoft Teams recording will give us all the clues that we need.
Microsoft Stream
Until recently recordings would be stored inn Microsoft Stream, and you could start by navigating to https://stream.microsoft.com.
Now in the My content -> Videos is where you want to look
All the older recordings that you started can be found here.
OneDrive
But now all recordings go into OneDrive and all you need to do is navigate to your OneDrive and you will find your recordings.
Sharing the recording
Now that we know the answer to our main question, where are Microsoft teams recordings stored. You might also want to know how to share the recording with others. For the older recordings you can go to Stream
The share option sits nicely under the ellipses menu that goes with your recording.
But for the newer recordings simply go to OneDrive and hit the share button, just the same way as you would do in SharePoint or OneDrive for other files.
Opening the recording
When I select the open in Microsoft Stream I get my recording. Ok, this looks a bit different from any of my earlier screens.
The recording is showing you how an attendee has seen the meeting.
Even though my meeting was part of “My Test Team” and the recording was accessed through the link in the conversation in the My Test Teams general channel, within Stream I can now find the recording.
What if the recording is not in Stream?
I’ve seen some recordings that don’t appear in Stream and these are only from within the chat of the meeting.
The Download link will let you download the recording but notice that this link will expire within 20 days!
Then I had a look at a post on the Tech Community site talking about A1 licences and recordings in Teams. In short, for A1 licensed users you will find that you only get a download link and no link to Microsoft stream.
More about recordings in Microsoft Teams
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/cloud-recording
Is there a way to start a meeting in teams without another user like you can in Skype with the Meet Now command under the gear icon? I would like to be able to record an instructional video without another user being in the meeting.
Hi Lon,
You can start a meeting without inviting anybody and then record the meeting and share the screen in teams.
This post shows you how to do this:
https://veenstra.me.uk/2019/09/17/record-your-microsoft-team-meetings-when-you-are-on-your-own/
Could you please let me know that for how long the recorded meeting stays in the Chat? I have searched a lot on web for this, but did not find anything useful.
Hi Rida, As the recording are stored in Stream you could find them by going to stream. I don’t think that they disappear however on a busy channel they may become hard to find.
Hi, What is the maximum length of a recording or file size of a recording MS teams can deal with?
what is the limit here?
Hi Niels, that limit will be the 50GB file size limit in Microsoft Stream. You can find the limites of stream ate the following link:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/stream/quotas-and-limitations
“It does take a while for the recordings to be processed.” Could you give an estimate? How long did it take for your 5 minute test video shown in the example? I had a 6 minute long recording earlier today, and it took about 45 minutes to show as “ready” in the chat in Teams; however, clicking the video (in Teams, or going to the Stream site) shows that it is still processing (over 3 hours later).
No. It isn’t possible to give an estimate for that.
It all depends on:
1. Length of your recording
2. Number of other people recording meetings.
3. and probably a lot more.
I use the Home version of Microsoft365 and did select Record at the beginning of my Teams meeting. As a Home user I don’t have stream. Where is the recording of my meeting?
After the meeting has finished it should be there with a link. Was your meeting organised from you environment or did youbjoin someone else’s meeting?
I initiated the meeting and sent the invitation to other persons.
Ok I will have to try it out with a personal account.
What if one person starts the recording and someone else ends it.. where does the recording go?
The person starting the recording owns the recording.