Zoom Recording and Transcript Auto-deletion

• Zoom is a video conferencing tool and not intended for long-term preservation. The Zoom cloud is most suitable for short-term storage, viewing, and downloading of recordings and transcripts. 
• Auto-deleting older Zoom recordings will greatly reduce UO’s spending on Zoom cloud storage, letting us invest in storage services that better serve the university.

You can access your Zoom cloud recordings and transcripts through the UO Zoom web portal, which supports deletion and short-term viewing, downloading, and sharing.

• Remove personal files. Any content that wasn't generated for or in connection with UO work should be removed from UO storage altogether. 
• Follow best practices for records retention. Some Zoom recordings need to be saved. Others should be deleted — but you may need to save the corresponding transcripts. Learn more about managing video recordings as records. 
• Storage costs money. Please be thoughtful about which recordings you keep and where you store them. Saving unnecessary files can stretch UO’s storage capacity and cause excess spending. Information Services staff are analyzing usage and costs for all UO storage services and may introduce auto-delete settings for other services soon, in consultation with stakeholders and University Records Management.  

As noted above, many recordings don’t need to be saved for more than 90 days. 

If you do need to save a recording or transcript, please download it and save it in the appropriate UO storage service: 

• Course-related recordings suitable for reuse: Panopto in Canvas 
  • Panopto is recommended for storing and serving video content, such as lectures or tutorials, that may be reused in future courses. Recordings in which students can be identified by face or name can't be reused in future teaching due to FERPA protections. 
• All other content: Dropbox, Microsoft SharePoint or Teams, or Microsoft OneDrive 
  • Please use shared spaces (SharePoint, Teams, or Dropbox team spaces) for content that others may need to access for operations or records retention. 

Yes and no.

• While recordings and transcripts are in Zoom’s Trash folder, you can temporarily recover files, download them, and store them elsewhere.  
• However, once a recording has been permanently deleted from the trash, it can’t be recovered — not even by Zoom. 

By default, Zoom will email you daily starting seven days before a recording is permanently deleted from the trash. Transcripts are deleted with their corresponding recordings. 

You can turn that email notification setting on or off: 

1. Visit the UO Zoom web portal and log in. 
2. Click Settings on the left. 
3. Choose the Meeting tab at the top. 
4. Choose Email Notification on the left to jump to that section. 
5. Find the setting When the cloud recording is going to be permanently deleted from trash. 
6. Toggle the setting on or off as you wish. Changes are saved immediately. 

• Yes. You can record locally to your computer instead of to the Zoom cloud. 
• You’re still responsible for retaining recordings and transcripts according to the UO Records Retention Schedule and storing them in appropriate locations, as described above. Learn more about best practices for records management of video recordings.