How to back up your meeting recordings

Meeting recordings end up wherever the call happened. Zoom saves to a folder on the host’s laptop or to Zoom’s cloud, Microsoft Teams puts recordings in OneDrive or SharePoint, and Google Meet drops them into a folder in the organizer’s Google Drive. Recordings can also expire under a retention policy or disappear when the person who hosted the call leaves the company.

This guide covers how teams usually keep meeting recordings, where those copies tend to go missing, and how to back them up into one Fabric library where each call is transcribed and searchable by what was said.

How people usually keep meeting recordings

The most common approach is to leave recordings where the meeting tool put them. That needs no effort, and for a one-off call it’s fine. Over months it scatters a team’s calls across several hosts’ accounts and three different platforms, and anyone looking for last spring’s client kickoff has to know who hosted it and which tool they used.

Some teams download recordings to a shared drive folder after each call. That gives one location and an off-platform copy. The files are large, the downloads are manual, and the folder fills with names like zoom_0.mp4 that say nothing about the discussion.

Meeting bots and transcription services keep a searchable archive of calls they joined. People like the transcripts. The archive usually lives in a separate app, apart from the notes, documents and slides the meeting was about. How to find something someone said in a meeting looks at that search problem in more detail.

Step 1: Upload the recordings you already have

Start by downloading the recordings that matter from Zoom, Teams and Meet, focusing on calls with decisions, client commitments or training content worth keeping. Drag the downloaded files into Fabric on the web or desktop, or use Upload a file. Uploading handles large numbers of files at once, and MP4, MOV, WebM, MP3, WAV and M4A are all supported for transcription later.

Rename files as they go in if you can, or add a comment with the client or project name. Fabric writes a short summary of each item and suggests tags, but a label in your own words, such as “Acme renewal call, March”, still helps when you browse a long list of recordings.

Step 2: Route new recordings into Fabric automatically

Google Meet recordings land in Google Drive. A Google Drive connection brings those files into Fabric with a two-way deep sync, so new recordings appear without a manual download. Connections need a paid plan.

For Zoom local recordings, install the Fabric desktop app. It mounts Fabric as a virtual drive, so you can set Zoom’s recording location in its settings to a folder on that drive. Each recording is then saved straight into Fabric, and files on the drive take no space on your computer.

Step 3: Record future meetings in Fabric

The simplest backup is to record into Fabric in the first place. With the desktop app installed, start a call in Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Google Meet and Fabric detects the meeting and offers to start transcribing. No bot joins the call. The transcript appears in real time, and you can search it and ask the AI questions while the meeting is going.

Notes you write before or during the call sit alongside the transcript. When the meeting ends, Fabric analyzes both together and produces a write-up. For in-person meetings, start a meeting note manually in any Fabric app. AI meeting and voice notes covers this in more depth, and how to take meeting notes without a bot joining the call walks through a first call. Recording meetings needs a paid plan.

Step 4: Transcribe the backlog and search it

Uploaded recordings can be transcribed so the speech becomes searchable text. Transcripts can be edited, which helps with product names and people’s names. Transcription needs a paid plan.

Click Search or press Cmd+F (Mac) / Ctrl+F (Windows) and type what you remember. Search matches by meaning across transcripts and the rest of your library, and results jump to the exact timestamp. Put a phrase in quotes, such as “net 60 payment terms”, when you need the exact words.

To pull answers across many calls, open the folder of recordings and ask the AI assistant, for example “what did the client say about the launch date across our last five calls?”. It cites each source with a timestamp you can click to hear the moment.

Step 5: Give the team access to the archive

Put the recordings in a shared space so the whole team can search them, not only the person who hosted. Roles and permissions can be set at space and file level, with viewer, commenter, editor and admin roles. A commenter can leave timestamped comments on a recording, which works well for flagging the moments a colleague should hear.

For recordings that include sensitive discussion, add a password on the Pro or Team plan; there’s no reset, so store it safely. Team pricing is on the plans for teams page.

Frequently asked questions

Where are Zoom recordings saved, and how do I back them up?

Local recordings go to a folder on the host’s computer, and cloud recordings stay in the host’s Zoom account. Download the ones you need and upload them to Fabric, or set Zoom’s local recording folder to a folder on the Fabric desktop drive.

How do I back up Google Meet recordings?

Meet saves recordings to the organizer’s Google Drive. Connect Google Drive to Fabric and the files sync in both directions. Connections need a paid plan.

How do I back up Microsoft Teams recordings?

Download the recording from OneDrive or SharePoint, where Teams stores it, and upload it to Fabric. For future calls, record with the Fabric desktop app, which detects Teams meetings.

Can I record meetings without a bot joining?

Yes. The Fabric desktop app detects calls in Zoom, Teams and Google Meet and transcribes them without a bot. This needs a paid plan.

Can I search old meeting recordings for something someone said?

Yes, once they’re transcribed. Search covers transcripts and results open at the exact timestamp.

Will meeting recordings fill up my laptop?

Not if you keep them on the Fabric desktop drive. Recordings there stream when you play them and take up no room on the computer, which matters with hour-long MP4 files.

Can I ask AI questions about a set of meeting recordings?

Yes. Open the folder and the AI assistant, or right-click the folder and add it to the assistant’s context. Answers cite timestamps in the recordings.

Which file formats can I upload and transcribe?

Video in MP4, MOV and WebM, and audio in MP3, WAV and M4A. Transcription needs a paid plan.