Where meeting recordings and transcripts are stored

A recording doesn't vanish when the call ends. It becomes a file in someone's account, and the tool's default settings decide who can open it. The details below come from Microsoft Teams and Google Meet. Other tools differ, so check your own tool's documentation.

Where the files go

Microsoft Teams. A recorded meeting is uploaded to the meeting organiser's OneDrive (private meetings) or SharePoint (channel meetings)¹. Recordings and transcripts are stored in OneDrive for work or school and SharePoint, and videos are just like any other file there². They're included in your quota for those services, and Microsoft gives the size of a one-hour recording as 400 MB².

If a recording can't be uploaded to OneDrive or SharePoint, it's temporarily stored in async media storage and must be downloaded within 21 days. Otherwise, the recording is deleted¹.

Google Meet. The "Take notes for me" feature captures meeting notes organised in Google Docs, and shares them with your team³. The notes live as a document, so the document's own sharing settings apply.

Who can see them

For Teams, people invited to the meeting get permission to view the recording. Guests and external attendees can view it only if it's explicitly shared with them¹. Microsoft 365 Search indexes it as well¹, so a recording can turn up in search results for people who have access.

In Google Meet, notes go to the people the host chooses. The page points out that "invited guests" means all guests on the Calendar invite, not guests who actually attended³. Someone who was invited and didn't come could still receive the notes.

The practical checks:

• Who is the owner of the file? If it's one person's account, what happens when they leave?
• Is the link set to specific people, or wider?
• Has anyone forwarded the link or the file?
• Are outside guests included on purpose?

How long they stay

In Teams, videos are just like any other file in OneDrive and SharePoint. Handling ownership and retention after someone leaves follows the standard OneDrive and SharePoint process². An administrator can use an auto-apply retention label policy in Microsoft Purview to delete recordings and their transcripts². The one-day minimum applies when a retention label policy is created in Purview². The saved sources give no default retention period for Teams recordings. Write down a rule: how long you keep recordings, how long you keep transcripts, how long you keep the summary. The three can differ. How long you must keep records for tax, employment or other reasons is set by the law of your country, so ask the official body or an accountant.

Where the data physically sits

With cloud tools, the servers may be in another country. The Australian privacy regulator tells organisations to consider where the servers are located and whether personal information could be disclosed outside of Australia⁴. The same question applies to a business anywhere. Look for a data location setting in the tool's admin pages.

A short storage plan

1. Pick one place for notes and one for recordings.
2. Keep recordings only if you'll need the exact words.
3. Share with named people, not with whole groups.
4. Tell attendees where the files go, as set out in telling people about recording.
5. Delete on a schedule that you've written down.

The difference between a transcript and a summary is on its own page.