Data Backup Digest

With more employees working from home than ever before, and even more relying on remote video calls to take care of day-to-day business, many novice computer users suddenly find themselves with the task of installing, using, and maintaining Zoom.

It can be overwhelming for new users. Between recording meetings on your hard drive, copying meetings to the cloud, and even locating meeting archives, there's a lot to take in. Making matters worse is the fact that many users need to learn it as quickly as possible.

What is Zoom?

For those who are unclear, Zoom is a popular video conference calling solution. While it does require each user to maintain an account on their website, as well as download and install their software, Zoom does offer a basic, free service. There is also a paid service for users who want more advanced features.

Enabling Zoom Recordings

The first step is to enable recordings within the Zoom desktop client. If you're using the free service, you're limited to local recordings only. For users of the paid software, you can choose to save your meetings to Zoom's cloud servers.

In either case, you can enable this feature by signing in to your Zoom web portal and navigating to the "Account Management" tab. From here, click on the "Recording" tab and check the box next to "Local Recording" or, if you are a paid user, "Cloud Recording." You can always come back here to toggle the settings on or off as needed.

Note that you will need to sign in to your Zoom web portal with administrator privileges in order to edit the account settings in this manner. You can also click on the "Lock" option to enable or disable this setting for all users on the account.

Saving Your Recordings

If you are hosting a Zoom meeting and you've already enabled recording, simply click on the "Record" button to begin recording. If you are a paid user, you'll have the option to either "Record to the Cloud" or to "Record on this Computer." Non-paid users will only have the latter option.

Generally speaking, only hosts and co-hosts can record a meeting. However, local recordings can be made by participants who have been specifically designated by the host. Only hosts and co-hosts can save a meeting to the cloud, although participants can be designated as co-hosts if necessary.

Accessing Zoom Recordings
Zoom recordings are initially saved as MP4 files. This specific type of file combines both audio and video, so you won't miss out on anything from the meeting.
The default location of your stored Zoom files varies depending on the operating system you are using, but they can be found below:

• Windows: C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\Zoom
• Mac: /Users/[Username]/Documents/Zoom
• Linux: home/[Username]/Documents/Zoom

Note that you can also change this location on the Zoom desktop client by signing in to the Zoom software, clicking on your profile picture, and then clicking on the "Settings" tab. From here, click "Recording." Finally, you can click either "Open" to open the folder or "Change" to change the current folder.