How to Record a Video Call in Google Meet and Save it to Drive

When hosting an important corporate presentation, a training seminar, or a critical client interview via Google Meet, taking manual notes often distracts you from the conversation. Instead, you can use Google Meet’s built-in recording feature to capture the entire video and audio feed of the meeting. This creates a permanent, shareable video file that is automatically uploaded to your Google Drive, allowing absent team members to catch up on the discussion later.

Requirements for Recording

Before attempting to record, it is vital to understand that this feature is not available to free, personal Google accounts. To see the record button, your account must meet specific criteria:

• You must be using a paid Google Workspace edition (such as Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise, or Education Plus).
• Your Google Workspace administrator must have explicitly enabled the recording feature in the Google Admin console for your organizational unit.
• You must be the meeting organizer, or belong to the same organization as the organizer. (External guests cannot initiate recordings).

How to Start Recording a Call

If you meet the requirements, starting a recording requires only a few clicks once you are inside the active meeting room.

1. Join the Google Meet video call.
2. Look at the bottom right corner of the screen and click the Activities button (the icon depicting a triangle, square, and circle).
3. A sidebar panel will slide out on the right. Click Recording.
4. Click the Start recording button.
5. A popup will appear reminding you to ask for consent. In many jurisdictions, it is illegal to record a conversation without the explicit permission of all participants. You should verbally inform everyone on the call that they are being recorded.
6. Click Start to confirm.

After a few seconds of buffering, a red “REC” icon will appear in the top-left corner of everyone’s screen, and an automated voice will announce to all participants that the recording has begun.

What Exactly is Recorded?

Google Meet does not simply record your screen like third-party software; it records the meeting directly from Google’s servers. The final video file will include:

• The active speaker’s video feed.
• Any presentations or documents that are shared via the “Present Now” screen-sharing feature.
• The audio of all participants.

The recording will not include the chat box messages on the screen, nor will it record other windows open on your computer (unless you are explicitly sharing your entire screen). However, a separate text document containing the chat log is usually saved alongside the video file.

How to Stop and Access the Recording

The recording will stop automatically when the very last person leaves the meeting room. However, you can manually stop it at any time.

1. Click the Activities icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Click Recording.
3. Click Stop recording, and then confirm by clicking Stop recording again on the popup.

Once stopped, Google’s servers need time to process the video (a one-hour meeting might take 15 minutes to process). You do not need to wait in the room. Once processing is complete, two things will happen automatically:

• An email containing a direct link to the video will be sent to the meeting organizer and the person who started the recording.
• The .mp4 video file will be automatically saved in the meeting organizer’s Google Drive, inside a specialized folder titled Meet Recordings. You can then share this file just like any other Google Doc.