Amid the upheaval caused by the pandemic, millions of people now have to work from home that brings a surge in the use of online video conferencing services. Thus, despite the video conferencing market has become sizable and saturated over the last few years, Zoom has emerged stronger than ever in this year turned upside down by COVID-19. Its daily users spiked to 200 million in March, up from 10 million in December, said by Zoom.
If you are one of the 200 million users, then probably you are aware of why many people want to record the Zoom meeting. When you are attending a Zoom meeting that lasts one hour or longer, you can record the meeting so you can play the video at 2X playback speed for saving time. When there is an important meeting but you can't join, taking a screen record ensures you are not missing any points. Recording Zoom meetings can also be useful when you host or attend a Zoom lecture, and you want to share an excellent class with more students. So here in this post, we'll show you how to record a Zoom meeting with or without host permission on any devices.
How to Record a Zoom Meeting Without Permission
"My professor doesn't allow recording directly by Zoom. I used to use the Xbox Game Bar app to record the screen anyway but it's not working anymore for some reason. Anyone knows another app I can use to record my screen with audio?"- Question from Reddit
By using the built-in screen recorder, you can record the Zoom meeting when getting the host's permission. However, what if you want to record the Zoom meeting without permission? Take a third-party screen capture.
Just a search on Google will throw in countless screen recorders. All these software rank themselves as the best tools for recording Zoom meetings and have got a good rating. This plants a seed of doubt in the mind of us, which is the right pick for us? To minimize this confusion of yours, we tried out a host of Zoom meeting capture software and found out VideoProc Converter and OBS are the best options to go. So without further ado, let me show you the detailed steps on how to record a Zoom meeting without host permission.
Method 1: Use VideoProc Converter to Record Zoom Meeting
What is VideoProc Converter? It is a one-stop solution for recording, downloading, editing, and converting videos. To speak of the screen recording feature, VideoProc Converter provides a simplified interface with quite a lot of useful features crammed in. It offers you 4 screen capture modes, allowing you to capture your computer screen, webcam, screen & webcam, or iPhone. As for the audio, you can decide to use internal sound and microphone sound.
The best part is it takes advantage of your graphics cards. Most tools in the markets are CPU-oriented. The launch up of those CPU hogs would result in a sudden increase in CPU usage. The delicate host or participants of the Zoom meeting are possibly able to tell from the steep rising CPU usage that you are making a recording. VideoProc Converter can retain your CPU usage at the value of 0.5%, not just allowing you to take recordings on a relatively poor computer, but also ensures you can record the Zoom meetings 100% secretly.
Record Zoom Meeting With VideoProc Converter – It's Fast, Easy, and Feature Rich
- Record the Zoom meetings and save them as HD (1080P) MP4, FLV, MOV, MKV, or TS files.
- Capture the computer/iPhone screen activity of any area.
- Record zoom meetings with your voice, or computer system sounds, or both.
- Convert the saved Zoom meeting to 420+ video and audio formats.
- Edit Zoom recordings with basic video editing toolkits like cut, trim, watermark, filter, and crop, etc.
Step 1. Open the Recording Panel
Launch VideoProc Converter. Click the Recorder button and then Choose Screen.
Step 2. Customize the Recording Preference
Tick up the option boxes of the computer system speaker, or microphone, or both. If there is no demand to record the meeting with audio, uncheck the option boxes of the speaker and microphone icon.
Step 3. Select the Recording Range
By default, VideoProc Converter records the entire screen; To record the Zoom meeting only, press Crop and then drag the box to keep the Zoom meeting window inside the cropping box. After defining the recording area, tap the green right icon.
Step 4. Record the Zoom Meeting
Tap REC to start the recording of the Zoom meeting. Once the meeting ends or you simply want to stop the recording, press CTR + Z. VideoProc Converter will instantly save the Zoom meeting screen recording as MP4 files and displays the folder on the right of this panel.
A Few More Tips:
Hit the setting icon on the right corner of the recording panel of VideoProc Converter. We can work with some options on the pop-up new panel to improve the efficiency and outcome quality of the Zoom recording.
- Recording: Choose High for getting the crispier picture quality.
- Recording format: We recommend you to choose MP4 from the available 5 options.
- Stop Recording & Paint Tools: Enter the customized hotkey to fast stop recording the Zoom meeting.
Method 2: Use OBS to Record Zoom Meeting
It's very possibly the best free solution to capture Zoom meeting without host permission by using OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). It is a cross-platform and open-source program used for video recording and live streaming on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems. With it, you can customize the output video and audio format, the resolution, bitrate, and everything else. It even lets you compose a video from multiple sources. So, virtually there isn't much OBS can't do. However, it's not beginner-oriented and its complicated interface makes the recording process a much more arduous task.
Step 1. Adjust the Recording Preference
If this is your first launch to OBS, it would give you the option to choose Optimize for streaming, Recording is secondary, Optimize just for recording. Go with the second option and then press Next. Choose the desired resolution from 1920x1080 and 1280 x 720 and frame rate from 30 to 60. After that, click on Next to run the auto-configuration wizard. After that, click on Apply Settings.
Otherwise, you need to press Settings on the home interface to lead yourself to the Settings panel. And then, Choose Video to enter the sub-panel for customizing the video output and canvas resolution. Here you can also find more frame rate options (10, 24, 25, 29, and more).
Choose Output and roll down to find Recording. There you can reset the recording path, recording quality, and the recording format (FLV, MP4, MOV, MKV, TS, M3U8).
Step 2. Enable the Windows Capture Feature
Hit the Add button and choose Windows Capture. The Create new icon is selected, so we just need to set up its name as Zoom meeting. Surely, we can leave it as default. Hit OK.
Step 3. Start to Record Zoom Meeting with OBS
Enter your Zoom meeting. Next, go back to OBS, navigate to Window, click this. Next, you press [zoom.exe]: Zoom Meeting and choose OK. When you are ready to record the Zoom meeting, hit Start Recording on the right.
2 Vexing Issues When You Record a Zoom Meeting by Using OBS
- You must choose the selected capture mode again when any participant stops sharing his screen.
- Frequently, you can only see a white screen when using OBS to record Zoom meetings.
How to Record Zoom Meeting on Mac or PC With Host Permission
Suppose you are the host or you've already got permission from the Zoom meeting host to take the screen record. The Zoom built-in screen recorder deserves your attention. It lets you record Zoom meetings locally or in the cloud.
- Record locally: record our computers/laptops/smartphones, and you have a file that you can work with.
- Record in the cloud. Zoom will record and serve on the cloud servers.
Step 1. Locate the small gear icon on the starting page of Zoom, and click this to open up the Settings panel.
Step 2. Press Recording to locate a few buttons used for setting the Zoom recording preference.
Step 3. Hit Change to assign a new folder to store your recordings. Zoom gives you the option to enable or disable several features, as like Close a location for recorded files when the meeting ends, Record a separate audio file for each participant who speaks, etc.
In my case, I choose Optimize for 3rd party video editor as I might need to trim some unnecessary partial off of the Zoom meeting recording.
Step 4. Enter the Zoom meeting. Navigate to the right bottom of the Window to find Record. You can now hit Record to start the recording of the Zoom meeting that you've taken participant. Press the pause or stop button to pause or stop the Zoom meeting recording.
If you stop the recording before the meeting ends, you'll see the notification on the top right corner which says: The recorded file will be converted to mp4 when the meeting ends.
How to Record Zoom Meeting on iPhone/iPad/Android
Note: Not everyone can record a Zoom meeting taken place on the phone. Zoom on a smartphone constrains you to record the meeting to the cloud. However, only a basic or advanced account gets access for recording to the cloud. In other words, you can record the Zoom meeting only if you have a paid subscription and get the recording permission from the host.
Step 1. Press New Meetings on the Zoom. Click on 3 buttons on the right of More to gain Record to the cloud feature.
Step 2. Click on the pause or stop button to pause or stop recording the Zoom meeting.
Step 3. Log into the Zoom official site on your browser to find the recorded Zoom meetings and save it to your local devices.
FAQ
Can You Record a Zoom Meeting?
Absolutely, you can record Zoom meetings on Windows, Mac, iPad, iPhone, and Android smartphones with the built-in screen recording feature of Zoom if you are the host or a participant who wins permission from the host to take the screen recording. Let's assume you are not the host or the host doesn't let you record the Zoom meeting, you can use a third-party screen recorder like VideoProc Converter and OBS to get the job done.
How to Find Zoom Recordings?
Many people using the Zoom screen record feature are asking: where do Zoom recordings go on Mac/windows? Click on Meeting and hit Recorded. You are going to see all the local Zoom meeting recordings that you have saved locally. You can also find them on the system file directory of Windows or Mac.
- Windows: C:/Users/[Username]/Documents/Zoom.
- Mac: /Users/[Username]/Documents/Zoom.
Where your Zoom recordings are stored if you record the Zoom meeting in the Zoom cloud? Enter the Zoom official site, sign in with your Zoom account, press recordings, you should be able to locate all the cloud recordings here.
