Not legal advice. This site is an editorial reference. Laws change — always confirm with a qualified attorney in the relevant jurisdiction before recording, and check each page’s last reviewed date.

How to Record a Microsoft Teams Call

Teams meetings can be recorded by any organizer or presenter on most paid Microsoft 365 plans. Recordings are stored in OneDrive (meetings without channels) or SharePoint (channel meetings) and respect the tenant’s retention policies.

Native option

Start a recording

  1. Join the meeting.
  2. Click More actions (...) → Record and transcribe → Start recording.
  3. A notification appears to all participants and a recording indicator is shown.
  4. Stop the recording the same way. Processing takes a few minutes.

Permissions

By default, organizers and presenters can record. Attendees cannot. The tenant administrator can adjust who is permitted to record through Teams admin policies.

Workarounds

1. Live transcription instead of recording

If recording is not permitted, live transcription may be available, which produces a text transcript stored alongside the meeting.

2. Screen recording

OS-level screen recording. Standard cautions apply.

3. Compliance recording (regulated industries)

Microsoft offers a Compliance Recording API used by third-party recorders (e.g., for financial-services MiFID II compliance). This is an enterprise feature, configured by IT.

Where the recording lives and how to export it

  • Channel meetings: SharePoint folder for the channel.
  • Other meetings: OneDrive of the person who started the recording, in a Recordings folder.
  • Sharing: by default, invited participants get access automatically.
  • Retention: determined by the tenant’s Microsoft Purview retention policies.

Common failure modes

  • Record option missing. Check Teams policy; some tenants restrict recording for compliance.
  • Recording not appearing. Processing time, or storage location may differ from expectation; check OneDrive/SharePoint.
  • External participants see no notification. Configure tenant policy to ensure the recording notification is enabled and the meeting joins are forced through Teams (not phone-in only).

Legal reminder

Whether you may record a call — with this platform or any other — depends on the law in every jurisdiction whose participants are on the call. See our jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction directory, the one-party vs. all-party explainer, and our consent script templates. Federal US law and most US states permit a participant to record, but thirteen US states and many countries require all-party consent.

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