How to Record Zoom Meeting/Call with(out) Permission on PC

Bianca Willis Bianca Willis Updated on Sep 29 , 2024 Tag:

Recording online meeting is quite necessary for people who’d like to save the live content for further review or share with those absent. So this is a serious instruction on how to record Zoom meeting on your Windows or Mac computer with no limit.

Officers, students, distant families, and friends widely use Zoom as a remote work software to stay connected during the challenging coronavirus pandemic. Consequently, this online video conferencing company’s stock has risen by more than 110% in recent months. Even it got a fall after Trump’s suggestion on reopening business around Easter festival, I believe customers who get used to making the most of Zoom for holding virtual meeting, course, party or event would not abandon it in the long run.

How to Record Zoom Meeting on PC

Great moments deserve recording for future enjoyment or reference. Then how to record Zoom meeting or call on computer? Briefly you have two ways to go: use the built-in recording feature or leverage a third-party Zoom recorder. You may ask which is more suitable for you, well, it really depends. Please complete the following content before you make the final wise decision.

Convent Overview:
Can I Record a Zoom Meeting on Zoom APP, Without External Tool?
Is There Limitation on Zoom App Recording?
Zoom App Recording vs Third-Party Recording, What’s the Difference?
How to Record Zoom Meeting/Call with Recording Software?

Can I Record a Zoom Meeting on Zoom APP, Without External Tool?

Yes, you can if you are the meeting host or attendee with recording permission.

Zoom has embedded the recording function in its program. By default, when you start up or join a Zoom (video/voice) meeting via URL, you will see a Record button located in the right bottom tool bar. By manually clicking this button and choose a recording mode (for paid subscribers only, free user won’t have this mode selecting step), you can start the real-time capture, pause and end it as you like. The file will convert and be ready to watch once the meeting ends.

For recording, Zoom offers free users (with a 40-minute limit) only the local recording option. Paid users, however, get the added choice of cloud recording. All premium plans—Pro, Business, Education, and Zoom Rooms—come with 0.5 to 1GB of free cloud storage for recording. Of course, the cloud storage is available to purchase and increase. And the price details for additional storage are listed below:
$40/month for 100 GB, with additional at $1.5/GB
$100/month for 500 GB, with additional at $0.5/GB
$500/month for 3 TB, with additional at $0.1/GB

According to Zoom, screen sharing recordings use about 20 MB of storage per hour, while video recordings use around 200 MB per hour. This helps you estimate how much cloud space your team might need.

How to Enable Automatic Recording for Zoom Meeting

Back to the point, for both local and cloud recording, you can also enable the automatic recording by signing in the web portal of Zoom and do related setting under Account Settings -> Recording section. In this way, every time the conference starts, the capture will be on by default.

Is There Any Limitation or Shortcoming of Zoom App Recording?

Everything on the planet has its pros and cons, therefore when you take Zoom recording with its bundled recording functionality, there are something you’d better make clear in advance.

1. In any meeting, there are two roles: host and attendee. The host has more control, deciding if recording is allowed, granting recording privileges to attendees, and enabling auto-recording. In other words, the participants may be limited to create Zoom recording.

Zoom Participant Recording Permission

2. Local recording is available only for PC users. If you’re on mobile, you’ll need to use cloud recording or a separate app. For desktop users, it’s best to save your recordings to your local drive, not a cloud-sync folder. This helps avoid any errors during saving or conversion.
3. For paid users, Zoom enables cloud recording automatically, so take a note on the available cloud storage. If your recorded file exceeds the maximum size, you’ll need to pay to access and watch the full video or audio.
4. Another risk of Zoom recording is that if the meeting is suddenly ended for internet or whatever reason, the recording on the going will be corrupted and unable to recovery.

Zoom App Recording vs Third-Party Recording, What’ s the Difference?

They two recording methods both have their own strengths and weaknesses. Below are some typical differences.

Zoom’s Built-in Recorder Third-party Zoom Meeting Recorder
Recording Permission The hosts are free to record while the attendees may be prohibited to record. Anyone joining the meeting could take a screencast.
Recording Modes Free users can only enjoy local recording while licensed people are offered both local and cloud recording modes. Only supports local recording
Recording Length No limit for local recording while it’s restricted by the cloud storage. No time limit.
Recording Formats MP4 for video recording, M4A for audio recording and M3U for playlist playback. More available video and audio formats, which vary from programs.
Recording Quality All files are produced with fixed quality level. More flexible quality control.
Recording Stability Any unexpected shutting down of meeting or file conversion will result in a corrupted or non-recoverable recording. What’s going on in the Zoom app will not affect the software recording.
Others Able to record audio files for any participants who speaks separately and has the recording transcribed; Public behavior that everyone knows you’re recording; Usually has features of annotating, editing, scheduling recording and one-click sharing; Recording secretly.

Zoom is a great teleconferencing service with useful recording features. However, local recording or file conversion failures can still happen, as noted by official sources. To ensure a stable recording experience, it’s recommended to upgrade to a premium plan with ample cloud storage or use a reliable Zoom screen recorder. If you’re an attendee without recording permission, you’ll need third-party screen recording software. Remember to consider the legal implications of recording without consent.

How to Record Zoom Meeting or Call at Will, Even Without Host Permission?

Generally, a dedicated screen recorder is capable of capturing whatever contents and behaviors on the desktop, system audio and microphone sound included. Set RecMaster – one of the easiest desktop screen recorders – for example, it’s able to perfectly record online meeting, video/voice call, and webinar from Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype or so forth app conversations. Also, you are free to create video or audio recording according to the real situation. Have a glance at the simple tutorial below:

Step 1. Free download and install the recorder on to your computer.

free download RecMaster for Windows free download RecMaster for Mac

Step 2. Launch RecMaster and choose a proper recording mode to move on: Full Screen is recommended for capture full-screen meeting, Custom Area is to meet the requirements on windowed or a fixed area recording, and Audio Only is designed for shooting Zoom meeting or call audio purely.

How to Record Zoom Meeting with RecMaster

Step 3. Set file format, quality and turn on the microphone. If you will hold or attend a scheduled meeting or prefer a scheduled recording, click Task Schedule to define the time and enable it.
Step 4. Click REC button or press Alt+1 hotkeys to start to record Zoom meeting/call once it’s ready. For scheduling recording, you just keep RecMaster running in the background and leave it alone. It will automate the capture by itself.
Step 5. Once the recording is complete, you can easily edit it and share it directly to YouTube.

To become a power user of Zoom, you should make certain on its functions and workflow and make the most of them. Just like the recording stuff, although it seems simple, there are still some holes you may fall into. Hope all of you have a great experience on Zoom meeting or call and have already known how to record Zoom meeting/call on your computer.

What If Your Zoom Recording Has No Sound?

Generally, Zoom and similar online meeting apps manage conference audio in their own way to protect it, which often leads to no sound issues when using non-Zoom recording software. However, with permission from the meeting host and participants, RecMaster can solve this issue using its built-in sound driver. On Windows, the system enables this driver by default. For Mac users, open Zoom and navigate to Settings -> Audio -> Speaker to select the appropriate option shown below.

Select Auntbox Audio Driver in Zoom app on Mac Computer

You may also be interested in guides on: How to Record Skype Call, How to Record WhatsApp Call, How to Record Facebook Messenger Call

RecMaster – Record Every Moment on Your Computer Screen

RecMaster – Record Every Moment on Your Computer Screen

Multiple recording modes make it easy to capture anything on screen.

Record 1080p or even 4K clips at 60fps to maintain the high quality still.

Flexible settings for mouse cursor effects, watermark and annotations.

Preloaded with recording scheduler, video editor. Allow one-click sharing.

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Bianca Willis

Bianca Willis

Bianca Willis started her copywriting career since 2014. As a tech editor with over 6 years writing experience, she has worked out hundreds of posts on multi-media solutions (video recording included), hot gadgets and troubleshooting tips.

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