Where Google Meet recordings are saved and how to find them

The short answer

Google Meet saves recordings to Google Drive, not to your computer. The recording goes into the meeting organizer's My Drive, in a folder called Meet Recordings. If you organized the meeting, check your own Drive. If someone else organized it, the file is in their Drive, and you can open it only if they have shared it with you or you already have access.

The organizer and the person who pressed Record can be different people. The organizer is the person who owns the Google Calendar event, or the person who started an instant meeting. Google also sends an email with a link to the recording to the organizer and to the person who started the recording. It also attaches a link to the Calendar event.

Recording is not available on every Google account. Whether you see a Record option depends on your account type and plan. For work or school accounts, it also depends on your administrator's settings. This guide does not confirm which plans include recording. If the option is missing, check your plan details or ask your administrator.

How to find a recording from a meeting you organized

• 1. Give it time to process. The file does not appear the moment recording stops, because Google processes it first. Longer meetings generally take longer.
• 2. Check your email. Look for a message from Google Meet that contains a link to the recording. If it has arrived, processing is finished.
• 3. Open Google Drive with the same account you used to organize the meeting. Go to My Drive, then open the Meet Recordings folder. Files are usually named after the meeting title with a date and time.
• 4. Alternatively, open the meeting's event in Google Calendar and look for the attached recording link.
• 5. Confirm it worked by opening the file. The recording should play in Drive's preview window.

How to find a recording from someone else's meeting

• Open the Calendar event. If you were invited, the recording link may be attached there.
• In Google Drive, open Shared with me and search for the meeting title.
• Search your email for the meeting name, in case the organizer shared the file directly.
• If none of these show it, ask the organizer to share the recording. Only the file's owner or someone with editing rights can grant access.

Other files that may be saved with the recording

Depending on your plan and settings, Meet can also create a transcript as a Google Doc and save a log of the in-call chat. These usually end up in the organizer's Meet Recordings folder or are linked from the Calendar event. This guide does not confirm which features your account has.

Saving a copy to your computer

Meet never downloads a recording to your device automatically. To keep a local copy, find the file in Drive, open its menu (or right-click it) and choose Download. The recording saves as an MP4 video file to your browser's download location. To download, you need sufficient access to the file, and the owner or an administrator can restrict downloads.

If the recording isn't where you expect

• Still processing: wait for the email from Google Meet before you assume something went wrong.
• Wrong account: if you have both a personal and a work or school Google account, check Drive in the account you used for the meeting.
• Not the organizer: if you started recording in someone else's meeting, the file goes to the organizer's Drive, not yours. Use the email link or ask the organizer.
• Moved or deleted: search Drive for the meeting title, and check Drive's Trash.
• Recording never started: if you didn't see Meet's on-screen notice that recording was in progress, the meeting may not have been recorded.
• Storage: recordings count toward the organizer's Drive storage, so check how much space they have left.

A note on menu names

Google updates the Meet, Drive and Calendar interfaces from time to time, and the names can differ by account type or language setting. The labels in this guide (My Drive, Meet Recordings, Shared with me, Download) were not checked against a specific version. If something looks different, search Drive for "Meet Recordings" or the meeting title.