RecordFlow for users

Managing recordings for several people on a Zoom account? Read the admin guide → or compare the two apps →

Last updated: August 19, 2026

RecordFlow automatically archives the Zoom cloud recordings you host to your own cloud storage. This guide covers everything from install to troubleshooting.

Install RecordFlow

The only setup you need is a sign-in — your Zoom account is your RecordFlow account, with no separate registration.

Steps:

1. Go to recordflow.org/sign-in and click "Sign in as a Zoom user".
2. Review the requested Zoom permissions and click "Allow" to authorize.
3. You land on the RecordFlow dashboard, where you connect Google Drive and start archiving.

Connect cloud storage

RecordFlow needs somewhere to put your recordings. Pick one — you can switch later, and recordings already archived stay where they are.

Once connected, RecordFlow begins syncing your recordings automatically — no “start” button to press. By default it brings over your last 2 years of Zoom cloud recordings and keeps every new one current. You can change how far back it reaches from Archive history in Settings.

Enable Zoom cloud recording

RecordFlow can only back up recordings stored in Zoom's cloud — not recordings saved locally to a computer. If cloud recording isn't on, there's nothing for RecordFlow to archive.

Cloud recording is a feature of paid Zoom plans (Pro, Business, Business Plus, or Enterprise). Zoom doesn't make cloud recordings available on the free plan, so no third-party tool can access them.

How to turn it on:

1. Open the Zoom recording settings.
2. Toggle Cloud recording on.
3. Save.

Whose recordings are archived

RecordFlow archives the cloud recordings owned by the Zoom user who installed the app — the recordings under your own recordings in Zoom. Destination: your own cloud storage folder.

RecordFlow archives Zoom Meeting cloud recordings only. It does not back up Zoom Phone call recordings or voicemail.

Where your recordings land

One extra level, if you turn it on. On the folder destinations you can add a series folder between the year and each recording, so every session of a repeating meeting collects in one shareable place. It is off by default and changes nothing until you enable it — see Group recordings by series.

Deduplication. RecordFlow keeps a record of every file it has already archived, so if a recording is already there it's skipped automatically — you won't get duplicates. This also means that if you move, rename, or delete a file after it's been archived, RecordFlow will not re-create it on the next sync. Your files are yours to manage. On the folder destinations it also won't create an empty meeting folder: a folder appears only when there's actually a new file to put in it.

Automatic and manual sync

RecordFlow archives new Zoom cloud recordings automatically without any manual action. You can also trigger a sync immediately from the dashboard.

How automatic sync works:

• Near-real-time: When a recording is completed, Zoom notifies us and RecordFlow transfers it within minutes.
• Hourly safety check: A scheduled job runs every hour to catch anything that slipped through.

To trigger a manual sync:

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Click "Sync now".
3. RecordFlow checks for new recordings and transfers them to Drive.

File types archived

RecordFlow archives the following file types from your Zoom cloud recordings:

• Video — MP4
• Audio — M4A
• Transcript — VTT, plus a formatted Google Doc version for easy reading and searching in Drive
• Chat — TXT
• Meeting summary — when Zoom's AI summary is enabled
• Timeline — meeting timestamp markers, when available

That full set goes to Google Drive, OneDrive and Dropbox. YouTube takes the video only — a channel has nowhere to put an audio file, a transcript or a chat log, so those are skipped rather than failed.

Settings

Settings live on the dashboard.

Archive history (how far back we import)

“Archive history” is how far back RecordFlow reaches when it backfills your existing Zoom cloud recordings. New recordings are always archived automatically no matter what this is set to — it only affects the one-time import of your older library.

By default we bring over the past month. As soon as you connect Google Drive, RecordFlow starts syncing on its own and brings over every cloud recording from roughly the past 30 days. There’s nothing to press to begin. We start shallow on purpose, so connecting doesn’t drop years of video into your Drive before you’ve decided you want it there.

Want a different depth? Choose how far back to go from the Archive history card in Settings on your dashboard — click Change and pick:

• Past month (the default) — recent recordings only, plus everything new.
• Past 6 months — a season of meetings, plus everything new.
• Past 2 years — a deep archive of your recent history.
• Past 10 years — your full Zoom cloud history.

What happens when you change it:

• Widening (e.g. past month → past 2 years) starts importing your older recordings right away — depending on how much you have, they can take from minutes to a few hours to be archived. Long lookbacks can use a lot of storage: a one-hour Zoom recording is typically 200–400 MB of video.
• Narrowing never removes anything — recordings already archived stay in your Drive; it only limits what we import from now on.

Transcript-only sync

If you only need meeting transcripts (not video or audio), enable transcript-only mode. When active, RecordFlow archives only the VTT transcript file for each recording, skipping video, audio, chat, and summary files.

Steps:

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Transcript-only sync on.

This applies to future syncs only — recordings already archived retain all their files in Google Drive.

Group recordings by series

If a meeting comes back week after week — a class, a team weekly, a monthly planning session, a board meeting — you can have every session collect in one folder instead of sitting loose among all your other recordings. You can share that folder once and never update the link again.

There are two rules RecordFlow can use to decide which sessions belong together. Both create the same thing — one folder per series, inside the year folder — they just recognise the series differently.

Grouping is off until you switch it on, and nothing already archived moves when you do — your recordings keep filing exactly as they do today until you choose otherwise.

By the text before a slash. RecordFlow reads the meeting topic: when it contains a slash, everything before the first slash names the series folder, and each recording’s own folder is created inside it.

So a Zoom meeting titled SLP 560 Sec 2 Class I/Artic and Phonology recorded on 25 August 2026 lands in 2026 → SLP 560 Sec 2 Class I → 2026-08-25-1430-SLP 560 Sec 2 Class I_Artic and Phonology. Every session titled with that same prefix lands in the same series folder.

This rule asks you to name your meetings a particular way, and in exchange it works on any meeting — including one-off sessions you schedule by hand.

By recurring meeting. Instead of reading the topic for a slash, RecordFlow can file every session of a recurring Zoom meeting into a folder named after it — no slash needed, and nothing to rename in Zoom. A weekly Tuesday Cohort recorded on 25 August 2026 lands in 2026 → Tuesday Cohort → 2026-08-25-1430-Tuesday Cohort.

Two recurring meetings that share a name share a folder, which is usually what you want: an alternating bi-weekly session scheduled as two separate Zoom meetings still ends up in one place.

Choosing between them. When you turn the setting on, RecordFlow shows you both rules side by side with a preview: how many of your recent recordings each one would group, into how many folders, and a sample of the folder names it would create. Pick whichever reads better for your account and press Turn on grouping; closing the chooser without saving changes nothing at all. Afterwards, Change grouping reopens the same comparison, and the button there reads Save grouping instead.

The preview is a forecast for future recordings, not a plan to move anything. Nothing already archived is relocated by choosing a rule. It is drawn from meetings you have archived recently, so a brand-new account will see “not enough data yet” — you can still choose, and the preview fills in as you archive more.

Steps:

1. If you plan to use the slash rule, title your meeting Series name/Session name. For the recurring rule, no renaming is needed.
2. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
3. Open Settings.
4. Toggle Group recordings by series on. A chooser opens with the preview; pick a rule and save.
5. To switch rules later, use Change grouping on the same card.

Worth knowing:

• The series folder is the only thing that changes. Each recording keeps exactly the folder name it would have had anyway — date, time and the full meeting topic, with any slash replaced by an underscore — and the files inside it are untouched.
• Under the slash rule, the text before the slash has to match exactly — “Class I” and “Class 1” are two different folders. The same is true of a recurring meeting’s name.
• Under the recurring rule, two unrelated series that happen to share a topic end up in one folder. Rename one of them in Zoom if you’d rather keep them apart.
• Meetings the chosen rule doesn’t recognise are unaffected and stay directly in the year folder, as before.
• A meeting archived from an AI Companion transcript alone, with no cloud recording behind it, sometimes reaches us without the information the recurring rule needs. Those sessions stay in the year folder even when the rest of the series is grouped.
• A new calendar year starts a new series folder. That is deliberate: next year’s students — or next year’s board — don’t get access to this year’s recordings just because you shared the folder once.
• This applies to future syncs only — recordings already archived stay exactly where they are, and turning the setting back off (or switching rules) leaves the folders already created behind.
• Series folders need a destination that has folders. A YouTube destination has no folder structure to group into.

Capture AI Companion transcripts

Some meetings are recorded with Zoom’s AI Companion but produce no cloud recording — the transcript lives only in Zoom’s Transcripts tab and never reaches Drive on its own. RecordFlow can archive those transcripts to your Google Drive as Google Docs, alongside your other recordings.

Once enabled, RecordFlow archives transcripts from new meetings going forward and also looks back over your past meetings, archiving any transcripts Zoom still has. The look-back is best-effort — how far back it reaches depends on what Zoom’s API still exposes for your account.

What might be missing: RecordFlow can only capture a transcript for a meeting you hosted — Zoom shares the AI Companion transcript with the meeting’s host only. The meeting also has to have had AI Companion turned on and still have its transcript in Zoom’s Transcripts tab. Meetings you only attended, or where AI Companion wasn’t enabled, won’t have a transcript for us to archive.

Steps (once enabled):

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Capture AI Companion transcripts on.
4. Grant the additional Zoom transcript permission when prompted.

Archive AI Companion meeting summaries (early access)

When Zoom’s AI Companion writes a summary for a recorded meeting — the key takeaways, discussion notes, and action items — RecordFlow can archive that summary to your cloud storage as both a Markdown file and a formatted document (a Google Doc on Drive, a .docx on OneDrive and Dropbox), saved in the same folder as that meeting’s recordings. Not available on YouTube, which only accepts video.

Summaries are archived alongside your normal cloud-recording sync, so they cover recorded meetings within your sync window from now on — RecordFlow doesn’t go back and archive summaries for older meetings.

What might be missing: RecordFlow can only archive a summary for a meeting you hosted that has a cloud recording and had AI Companion meeting summary turned on. Summaries can take a while to generate — sometimes after the recording itself is ready — so a summary may land on a later sync than the recording. Meetings you only attended, meetings without a cloud recording, or meetings where AI Companion summary wasn’t enabled won’t have a summary for us to archive.

Steps (once enabled):

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Archive AI Companion meeting summaries on.
4. Grant the additional Zoom meeting summary permission when prompted.

Plain-text transcript for AI tools

RecordFlow already archives each transcript as a raw .vtt file and a formatted document (a Google Doc on Drive, a .docx on OneDrive and Dropbox). If you're feeding your archive folder into an AI tool or knowledge base (an AWS Bedrock Knowledge Base, NotebookLM, or your own RAG pipeline), RecordFlow can additionally archive a plain .txt version of the transcript, named after the meeting folder and starting with the call title and recorded date — so a flat folder of transcripts stays self-describing without relying on the folder structure.

Once enabled, the .txt file is archived alongside the .vtt and the formatted document for every future transcript. Not available on YouTube, which only accepts video. It doesn’t include meeting duration — just the call title, recorded-on date, and speakers — since that's what AI ingestion pipelines have told us they actually need.

Participant details in transcripts (early access)

A Zoom transcript labels each speaker with their display name, which is often just a first name, or a first name and a last initial. That’s fine to read, but it isn’t enough to tell one Alex from another when you feed a folder of transcripts into an AI tool or a knowledge base. A transcript also only ever names the people who spoke — anyone who joined and listened without saying anything leaves no trace in it at all. Turn this on and RecordFlow asks Zoom who attended each meeting and writes a Participants list into the top of every transcript it archives — everyone who was there, whether or not they spoke, with each person’s name and, where Zoom shares it, their email address:

Weekly 1:1 with Acme
Recorded on Saturday, May 30, 2026 12:00 UTC
Speakers:
- Alex
Participants:
- Alex Rivera <alex@acme.example>
- Jordan Lee <jordan@brightpoint.example>

[00:00:01] Alex: Hello there

The list appears in all three transcript formats — the raw .vtt is left untouched as Zoom produced it, but the formatted document, and the plain .txt if you have that on, both carry it.

What might be missing: Zoom decides which email addresses it shares with us, and its rule is that only people on your own Zoom account come through with an address. External guests — clients, prospects, anyone joining from their own Zoom — usually arrive with a name and no address, and they still appear in the list, just without one. Zoom also keeps attendance data for the last 15 months only, requires a Pro plan or higher, and (unless you enable Show one person meetings and webinars on Dashboard and Reports in your Zoom account settings) reports nothing for a meeting only one person joined. Anything we can’t get simply leaves the list out; the transcript is archived either way. This applies to transcripts archived from now on — ones already in your storage aren’t rewritten.

Steps (once enabled):

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Add participant details to transcripts on.
4. Grant the additional Zoom participant permission when prompted.

Auto-delete after archive (optional)

RecordFlow can optionally move Zoom cloud recordings to your Zoom Trash after they've been safely copied to your cloud storage. This frees up Zoom cloud storage without manual cleanup. Available on every destination. On YouTube the check runs a little later than elsewhere: nothing leaves Zoom until YouTube has finished processing the video and reports it at the size we uploaded, so a recording still processing simply keeps its Zoom copy until the next day’s check.

How it works:

• We delete recordings from Zoom once they're safely archived. RecordFlow waits at least 3 days after the archive completes before issuing the trash call.
• After that, the archived copy is yours: you can move, rename, or even delete it. The Zoom-side cleanup runs on the same schedule regardless — your choices about your archived copies don't pause it.
• Recordings are moved to your Zoom Trash (not permanently deleted). Zoom keeps a 30-day Trash window if you change your mind.

Steps to enable:

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Auto-delete after archive on.
4. Authorize the additional Zoom permission when prompted.

If you have the auto-delete feature enabled, you can also delete individual recordings from Zoom on demand without waiting for the 3-day grace period: open a synced meeting in your sync history, click "Delete from Zoom", and confirm. RecordFlow checks that the recording was successfully transferred to your cloud storage before issuing the trash call.

Email notifications

Get notified by email each time recordings are synced to your cloud storage, with direct links to the archived files.

Steps:

1. Go to your RecordFlow dashboard.
2. Open Settings.
3. Toggle Email notifications on or off.

Removing RecordFlow

To remove RecordFlow from your Zoom account:

1. Go to the Zoom App Marketplace.
2. Click Manage → Added Apps.
3. Find RecordFlow in the list and click "Remove".
4. Confirm the removal when prompted.

When you remove RecordFlow, syncing stops immediately, all your account data (encrypted tokens, sync history, settings) is automatically and permanently deleted from RecordFlow, and any recordings already in your cloud storage remain there untouched. RecordFlow sends one confirmation email to the address on file after the deletion completes and never contacts you again.

Removing the app deletes our copy of your storage credentials. If you also want to withdraw RecordFlow's access from the storage provider's own side:

• Google Drive — Google Account → Security → Third-party apps, then remove RecordFlow from the list.
• OneDrive — for a personal Microsoft account, Microsoft account → Apps and services you've given access to; for a work or school account, use the My Apps portal and revoke permissions there.
• Dropbox — on dropbox.com, open Settings → Apps → Connected apps and disconnect RecordFlow.
• YouTube — same place as Google Drive, since YouTube uses your Google account: remove RecordFlow under Google Account → Security → Third-party apps.

When something's not working

My recordings aren't syncing →

The most common cause is a cloud-vs-local recording mix-up — the fix article walks through it step by step.

I get an authorization error when connecting

Connecting RecordFlow takes two approvals: one for Zoom and one for your cloud storage. If you hit an authorization error part-way through, reload the page and start the connection again, making sure to approve the access RecordFlow asks for in both windows. If the error keeps coming back, contact us through our support page with a screenshot of the message and we'll help you get unblocked.

I see duplicate files

RecordFlow uses deduplication to prevent duplicate files. If you see what appear to be duplicates, they likely have different Zoom recording IDs (for example, from separate recording sessions of the same meeting).

Sync is slow

Large recordings are transferred in chunks. An hour-long meeting may take a few minutes to fully transfer. This is normal and ensures reliable delivery even for large files.

My video shows "not ready for playback" in Drive →

That's Google Drive preparing a freshly uploaded video — your recording is already safely backed up. The fix article explains what to expect.

Need more help?

Start with the common problems, fixed list. For anything else, contact us through our support page — please include the email address associated with your Zoom account and a description of the problem.