Recording a Video Meeting: Where the File Goes and How Long It Stays

Recording a video meeting takes one click. Everything that makes the recording useful happens outside that click: where the file is stored, who can get to it later, and what deletes it when its purpose has expired.

Most businesses get the first part right and none of the rest, which is how a recording of an important client conversation ends up on a laptop that has since left the company.

Server-side or host-side: the decision that matters

There are two places a meeting recording can be made, and they produce very different outcomes.

On the host's machine. The file records locally, which means it stops when they close the lid, it captures whatever their machine was doing, and afterwards it sits in their downloads folder. It is not searchable by anyone else, it is not backed up, and when that person leaves it goes with them.

On the server. One file per meeting, stored in the business account, available to everyone on it, and subject to a retention rule that runs whether or not anybody remembers. On WOCOM Meet recording is server-side, which is why the recording belongs to the business rather than to whoever happened to press the button.

How long to keep it

WOCOM Meet keeps recordings for 30 days by default and deletes them automatically after that. Everyone on the account can play or download them in the meantime.

Thirty days sounds short until you think about what recordings are actually for. The overwhelming majority are watched, if at all, within a fortnight — by someone who missed the session, or to settle a question about what was agreed. A recording nobody has opened in a month is rarely opened at all; it is just risk sitting on a disk.

If a specific meeting needs keeping longer — a board session, a disciplinary, a contract negotiation — download it inside the window and store it wherever your business keeps records of that kind, with the same access controls as the rest of them.

The Data Protection Act part

A recording of a meeting with a customer, a supplier or a candidate is personal data. Jamaica's Data Protection Act sets three expectations that apply just as much to video as to recorded phone calls:

• Notice. People should know they are being recorded. Announce it at the start — a line in the calendar invite is not enough on its own.
• Purpose. Write down why you record. “In case it is useful” is not a purpose; “so colleagues who could not attend can catch up” is.
• Retention. Keep it for a defined period and then delete it. This is where most businesses fail, because manual deletion is a task that quietly stops happening.

Automatic deletion on a fixed window does the third one for you. That is the strongest practical argument for a fixed retention period over an unlimited archive: the policy enforces itself.

Who should be able to retrieve a recording

Everyone on the account can play and download recordings on Meet, which suits most small and medium businesses — the alternative, where only the host can retrieve a file, recreates the laptop problem in a different form.

Where a business handles sensitive conversations regularly, the better control is usually not restricting access after the fact but deciding more carefully what gets recorded in the first place. A recording that was never made needs no access policy.

What to tell people, and when

Three habits cover almost every situation:

• Say it out loud when recording starts, not only in the invite.
• Tell participants how long it will be kept — “this is recorded and deleted after 30 days” takes three seconds and removes most objections.
• Stop recording before the informal part. The five minutes after the agenda ends are where people say things they would not want kept.

Recording is not a substitute for notes

Worth saying plainly: nobody rewatches a two-hour meeting. A recording answers a specific question — what exactly was agreed about the delivery date — and is close to useless as a general record. The summary still has to be written by a person, and the recording is what you check it against when somebody disputes it.

For phone calls the equivalent problem is solved by transcription, which turns audio into something searchable — see AI transcription for phone calls.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long are WOCOM Meet recordings kept?

30 days by default, after which they delete automatically. Everyone on the account can play or download them during that window.

Where are meeting recordings stored?

On the WOCOM server rather than on the host's machine, as one file per meeting available to the whole account.

Do I have to tell people the meeting is being recorded?

Yes. Notice is expected under the Data Protection Act, and the practical way to give it is to say so when recording starts.

Can I keep a recording longer than 30 days?

Download it inside the window and store it with your other business records. The retention rule applies to the copy held in the meeting platform.

Can participants stop a meeting being recorded?

They can decline to take part once they have been told. That is the main reason to announce it at the start rather than partway through.

Getting started

If your team records meetings today and nobody can say where last quarter's files are, that is the problem worth fixing first. The WOCOM Meet page covers recording and retention, and the meeting security guide covers who gets into the room in the first place.