We record meetings so presentations can be shared, and discussion points can be captured. Meeting recordings from Microsoft Teams used to be stored in Microsoft Stream, a video sharing service for Microsoft 365. While this was convenient, sharing meeting recordings with the rest of your organisation or with meeting guests was confusing and cumbersome.  

Meeting recordings are now saved in OneDrive and SharePoint, the file system powering file collaboration and sharing in Microsoft 365. This gives us the following benefits:

Familiarity. Recordings are stored in the same way other files are stored in Microsoft 365.

Easy to share. Share a meeting recording the same way you share a file from OneDrive and SharePoint. Choose the audience for the link. Give either view or edit permissions. Copy the sharing link or email it directly from the sharing controls.

Copy or move a recording. Use the Copy or Move controls in OneDrive and SharePoint. No need to download from Stream, then upload to OneDrive or SharePoint.

Share with guests and contacts outside of your org. If your organisation allows external sharing and your OneDrive or SharePoint site is configured to support it, create a sharing link for external contacts. The recording remains within control of your organisation and sharing can be removed if required.

Private meeting or Channel meeting? What is the difference?

Microsoft Teams meetings can be held privately or from within a channel in a Microsoft Teams team.

Private meetings are held in a private meeting space. I often think of them as a private meeting room that exists only for a single meeting or a meeting series. Invite specific people to the meeting, members of a distribution group, or share a link that allows anyone to join. Chat is attached to the private meeting. A file shared in the meeting is uploaded to the meeting chat. The file is shared using the OneDrive of the person who uploaded it to the meeting.

Channel meetings are held in the channel of a team. Anyone in the team can join and specific people can be invited to the meeting. Chat and files shared in the meeting are kept within the team.

This post will focus on Private meetings.

Recording a private meeting

Before discussing recording a meeting, it is important to explain the roles within a meeting and the different experiences for someone from the organisation hosting the meeting, or an external guest of the organisation.

Meeting roles

Organiser – The person who created the meeting invite

Presenter – A person who has permission to present in the meeting

Attendee – A person who has been invited to attend, but cannot present content to the meeting

Anonymous Attendee – A person who has joined the meeting without signing into a Microsoft 365 account. They can indicate their identity by setting a display name as they join the meeting.

Learn more about the meeting roles and how they can participate in a meeting.

You can join the meeting as a member of the organisation hosting the meeting. Or you may be an external guest of the organisation hosting the meeting.  A meeting organiser or presenter can start the recording. But they must be from the organisation hosting the meeting. 

Meetings can be recorded by the meeting organiser, or an attendee from your organisation in the Presenter role. The meeting organiser can set the roles for the meeting depending on the purpose of the meeting. For example, a meeting for open collaboration with attendees assigns everyone the ‘Presenter’ role.

When an organiser or presenter starts the recording, they become the owner of the meeting recording. The file will be saved to their OneDrive in a folder named ‘Recordings’.

A guest presenter cannot record the meeting. They do not have a OneDrive in your Microsoft 365 environment to save the recording to.

When a meeting organiser or presenter stops the recording, the file is saved to the OneDrive of the person who started the recording. The meeting recording is shared automatically with meeting attendees from your organisation.

Viewing a private meeting recording

After the recording has been saved, a thumbnail is visible in the meeting chat. Clicking on the thumbnail will open the meeting recording in your web browser. If you are using the Microsoft Teams desktop app, that can be a little jarring. When meeting recordings were saved to Microsoft Stream, a modal window would open in Teams desktop and play the recording.

Also note that the recording will try to open in the last active browser window of your default browser. If you use multiple browser profiles, you may need to sign into the browser with your Microsoft 365 credentials.

The meeting recording will open in the OneDrive of the person who started the recording. If you were invited to the meeting and are from the organisation hosting the meeting, the recording file will be automatically shared with you.

Meetings that you have recorded are stored in your OneDrive in a folder named Recordings. Attendees from the organisation can find meeting recordings in the Shared view of their OneDrive.

Sharing a private meeting recording

A meeting recording can be shared with people who didn’t attend the meeting. But this is where file ownership and external sharing policies can complicate sharing.

 Learn more about different meeting types, roles and levels of access to the recording.

 The most secure option is to share the recording using the Specific People option. Enter a person’s name or the name of a specific security group or Micrososft 365 group.

Some organisations restrict OneDrive and SharePoint from sharing with external guests. This will prevent a meeting recording from being shared with people outside of the organisation the meeting.
This is likely to result in people “finding a way” to share the meeting recording if it’s really important to them.