Recording a Microsoft Teams meeting is one of the most useful features available to business users — whether you need to share the session with colleagues who could not attend, review key decisions, or keep an accurate record of what was agreed. This guide covers everything you need to know, from who can hit the record button to where the file ends up and how to share it afterwards.

Who Can Record a Microsoft Teams Meeting?

Not everyone in a Teams meeting can start a recording. Microsoft restricts this to specific roles, and a qualifying licence is required.

The following roles can start and stop a recording:

The meeting organiser
Co-organisers assigned before or during the meeting
Presenters who are from the same organisation as the organiser

Attendees and external guests cannot start a recording. In terms of licensing, you need at least a Microsoft 365 Business Standard licence (or an equivalent enterprise plan such as Microsoft 365 E3 or E5) to record meetings. Users on Microsoft 365 Business Basic will find the recording option unavailable. If your organisation uses Teams Essentials only, recording is not included.

IT administrators can also restrict recording permissions at a policy level, which means even eligible users may find the option disabled if their admin has turned it off for their account or group.

Before covering how to start a recording, it is important to understand consent. When a recording begins, every participant in the meeting receives an on-screen notification that the meeting is being recorded. This applies to all participants — including those joining by phone. There is no way to record silently or without notification in Teams.

In some regions, local laws require active consent from all parties before a conversation can be recorded. Teams provides the notification, but the responsibility for legal compliance sits with the meeting organiser. If you are recording a meeting with external guests, it is good practice to verbally confirm at the start that the session is being recorded and give participants the opportunity to leave if they do not consent.

How to Start a Recording During a Meeting

Starting a recording in Teams is straightforward once you know where to look. Follow these steps during an active meeting:

Join or start the meeting as normal.
In the meeting controls toolbar at the top of the screen, click the More actions button (the three-dot ellipsis icon).
From the dropdown menu, select Start recording.
A notification will appear for all participants confirming the recording has started.

A recording indicator will appear in the meeting controls while the session is being captured. You do not need to do anything else — the recording runs in the background until you stop it or the meeting ends.

Note that transcription may also start automatically alongside the recording, depending on your organisation’s settings and your Teams licence.

How to Stop a Recording

To stop the recording before the meeting ends:

Click More actions (the three-dot icon) in the meeting toolbar.
Select Stop recording.
A confirmation prompt will appear — click Stop recording again to confirm.

If you end the meeting without manually stopping the recording, Teams will stop it automatically when the last participant leaves. The recording is then processed and saved — this can take a few minutes depending on the length of the meeting.

What Happens If the Organiser Leaves the Meeting?

If the meeting organiser leaves while a recording is in progress, the recording does not stop automatically just because the organiser has left. It continues until either a co-organiser or presenter manually stops it, or until the meeting ends entirely. However, if the organiser is the last person in the meeting and they leave, the meeting ends and the recording stops at that point.

This is worth bearing in mind if you are running a long session and need to hand over to someone else — ensure a co-organiser is assigned before you leave so they can manage the recording if needed.

Where Are Teams Meeting Recordings Saved?

Where your recording is saved depends on the type of meeting:

Scheduled Meetings and Ad-Hoc Calls

For standard scheduled meetings and impromptu calls, the recording is saved to the OneDrive of the meeting organiser. Specifically, it goes into a folder called Recordings inside the organiser’s OneDrive. All meeting participants automatically receive a link to the recording in the meeting chat once processing is complete.

Channel Meetings

When a meeting takes place inside a Teams channel (scheduled directly from the Posts tab of a channel), the recording is saved to the SharePoint document library associated with that team, in a Recordings folder. This means all members of that channel can access the recording directly from SharePoint, without needing a link to be shared manually. If you regularly host structured sessions with a fixed team, channel meetings are often the better choice for this reason — find out how to set one up in our guide on how to create a team in Microsoft Teams.

Recording in Teams Premium vs Standard Teams

The standard Teams recording captures video, audio, and screen share content. If your organisation has Teams Premium, recording becomes significantly more powerful:

Intelligent recap — AI-generated meeting notes, action items, and chapter markers are produced automatically after the meeting.
Speaker timeline — the recording is indexed by speaker so you can jump directly to what a specific person said.
Transcript search — a full, searchable transcript is generated and linked to the recording.
Follow-up suggestions — Teams Premium can suggest tasks and next steps based on meeting content.

Even without Teams Premium, Microsoft 365 Business Standard includes automatic transcription when recording is enabled, provided your admin has switched it on. The transcript appears alongside the recording in OneDrive or SharePoint and is useful for accessibility and review purposes.

Once processing is complete, there are a few ways to find and share a recording:

From the Meeting Chat

A link to the recording is posted automatically in the Teams meeting chat. Anyone who was invited to the meeting and is inside your organisation can access it via this link. External guests may need to be granted access separately depending on your sharing settings.

From OneDrive or SharePoint

The organiser (or any team member with SharePoint access for channel meetings) can navigate directly to the Recordings folder in OneDrive or SharePoint to find the MP4 file. From here you can download it, share it via a link, or move it to another folder. You can also adjust the sharing permissions — for example, to share with someone outside your organisation.

Who Can See the Recording?

For scheduled and ad-hoc meetings, by default only the people who were invited to the original meeting can view the recording link. The organiser can change these permissions in OneDrive if they want to share more widely or restrict access. For channel meetings saved in SharePoint, all channel members have access automatically.

Recording vs Webinars in Teams

If you are hosting a larger, more structured event rather than an internal meeting, Teams also supports webinars with dedicated registration and attendee management tools. Recording works similarly in webinars — the organiser can start and stop it from the meeting controls. For a full walkthrough of the webinar format, see our guide on how to run a webinar in Microsoft Teams.

Common Recording Issues

Recording Button Is Greyed Out

If the Start recording option appears greyed out or is missing entirely, the most likely causes are:

Your Microsoft 365 licence does not include recording (Business Basic users, for example, cannot record).
Your IT administrator has disabled recording via a Teams meeting policy.
You are a guest or attendee rather than an organiser, co-organiser, or presenter.
The meeting is hosted by someone in a different organisation whose policies do not permit recording.

If you believe you should have access but the option is still unavailable, contact your Microsoft 365 administrator to check your assigned meeting policy.

Recording Is Missing After the Meeting

Sometimes a recording appears to have been made successfully but the link in the chat does not work, or the file cannot be found in OneDrive or SharePoint. This can happen due to processing delays, storage quota issues, or policy-related deletions. We have a dedicated post that covers the most common causes and fixes: Microsoft Teams meeting recording not available.

Teams also has other productivity features worth exploring — for example, you can use the built-in whiteboard during a meeting to collaborate visually in real time. See our guide on how to use Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams to get started.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can attendees record a Teams meeting?

No. Only the meeting organiser, co-organisers, and presenters from the same organisation can start a recording. Regular attendees and external guests do not have access to the Start recording option.

How long are Teams recordings kept?

By default, recordings stored in OneDrive and SharePoint are kept indefinitely unless you or your administrator delete them, or unless an expiry policy has been configured by your organisation. Some tenants are set up with an automatic expiry (commonly 60 or 120 days) after which the recording is deleted. Check with your IT administrator if you are unsure what retention policy applies to your account.

Can I record a Teams meeting on my phone?

Yes. The Teams mobile app supports recording, provided you have the appropriate licence and role in the meeting. Tap the three-dot menu during a meeting and look for the Start recording option. The recording is saved in exactly the same way as it would be on desktop.

Does Teams recording capture breakout rooms?

No. The main meeting recording does not capture activity in breakout rooms. If you need to record a breakout room session, a participant with the appropriate permissions would need to start a separate recording within the breakout room itself. Each breakout room recording is saved separately and linked in the breakout room chat.

How to Record a Microsoft Teams Meeting

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