How to Find a Teams Meeting Recording

Applies to: Microsoft Teams (desktop, web, mobile); Microsoft 365 (OneDrive, SharePoint)
Article Type: How-To
Last Updated: 2026-07-29

Summary

Teams recordings are ordinary video files stored in Microsoft 365, and where a recording lands depends entirely on what kind of meeting it was. This article shows you the four routes to any recording, how to share one with someone who was not invited, and how to stop it deleting itself.

Prerequisites

• A Microsoft Teams account with a Microsoft 365 licence.
• Someone recorded the meeting. A meeting nobody recorded leaves no file behind.
• You attended the meeting, or the person who recorded it shares the file with you.

Instructions

Two facts explain almost every "where did it go" moment:

• Recordings no longer live in Stream. Microsoft Stream classic was retired, and old Stream links no longer resolve. Every recording made today is a plain .mp4 file stored in OneDrive or SharePoint, played through the Stream player in your browser.
• The meeting type decides the location. A scheduled or ad hoc meeting saves to the OneDrive of the person who clicked Start recording, in a folder named Recordings. A channel meeting saves to the SharePoint site behind that team, in the channel's own Recordings folder.

That distinction also decides what you can do with the file. In a channel meeting, everyone on the team already has access. In every other meeting, one person owns the file and the invited attendees get view access.

1. Open the Recording from the Meeting Chat

The fastest route, and it works whether or not you organized the meeting.

1. Open Teams and click Chat in the left app bar.
2. Find the meeting in the chat list. Meeting chats carry the meeting title and show the date of the meeting rather than a person's name.
3. Open the chat and scroll to the end of the conversation. The recording appears as a card with a video thumbnail, the meeting name, and the length.
4. Click the card. The recording opens in the Stream player, either in the Teams window or in a browser tab, and starts playing.
5. To reach the underlying file, click the three dots (...) in the player toolbar and select Open in OneDrive or Open in SharePoint.

Note: A recording takes several minutes to upload and process after the meeting ends. If the chat shows a plain grey placeholder instead of a thumbnail, or the card is missing entirely, wait 10–15 minutes and reopen the chat.

2. Open the Recording from the Calendar Event's Recap Tab

Reach the recording from the calendar entry when the chat has scrolled out of reach.

1. Click Calendar in the left app bar.
2. Move to the day the meeting ran and double-click the event. The meeting window opens.
3. Click the Recap tab along the top of that window, beside Details and Chat. Older builds show the recording in a section on the Details tab instead.
4. The Recap tab lists the recording, the transcript, files shared during the call, and the attendance report.
5. Click the recording thumbnail to play it, or click the three dots (...) beside it and select Open in OneDrive to reach the file.

Tip: If you want one specific thing that was said rather than the whole video, open the Transcript on the same Recap tab and use the search box above it. Clicking a line in the transcript jumps the video to that moment.

3. Find It in OneDrive When It Was a Scheduled or Ad Hoc Meeting

Every non-channel recording lands in the OneDrive of the person who started it.

If you started the recording:

1. Go to https://onedrive.com in a browser and sign in with your work account, or click the app launcher grid in the top-left corner of any Microsoft 365 page and choose OneDrive.
2. Click My files in the left sidebar.
3. Open the folder named Recordings.
4. Look for the meeting title. Teams names the files as the meeting title, then the date and time, then Meeting Recording — for example Weekly Project Sync-20260722_140312-Meeting Recording.mp4.
5. Click the file name. The video opens in the Stream player and plays in the browser.

If someone else started the recording:

1. Click Shared in the left sidebar of OneDrive, then open the Shared with you tab.
2. Look for the meeting title in the list. Everyone invited to the meeting gets view access automatically the moment the recording finishes saving.
3. Sort by the Date shared column to bring recent items to the top if the list is long.

Note: The Recordings folder is created the first time you record something. If you have never started a recording, the folder does not exist in your OneDrive — that is expected, and it does not mean a recording was lost.

4. Find It in SharePoint When It Was a Channel Meeting

A meeting held in a channel stores its recording with the team's files instead.

A meeting counts as a channel meeting when it was started from the channel with Meet, or scheduled with a channel selected in the Add channel field of the invitation.

1. Click Teams in the left app bar and open the channel where the meeting was held.
2. Click the Files tab at the top of the channel. The channel's document library opens inside Teams.
3. Open the Recordings folder.
4. Click the .mp4 file to play it in the Stream player.
5. To work with the file in the browser instead, click Open in SharePoint on the Files tab toolbar — it sits under the three dots (...) if the window is narrow. The team's SharePoint document library opens in a new tab, on the same folder.

Note: Anyone who is a member of the team can open a channel recording without being invited to the meeting and without anyone sharing it. That is the practical difference between the two meeting types, and it is worth remembering when you decide where to hold a session people will want to review later.

5. Search for the Recording by Name

Track down a recording when you do not remember the meeting or who recorded it.

1. Go to https://onedrive.com and click the search box at the top of the page.
2. Type part of the meeting title, or type Meeting Recording — every Teams recording carries that phrase in its file name.
3. Press Enter. The results cover your own OneDrive, everything shared with you, and the SharePoint sites you belong to.
4. Narrow the results with the Type filter above the list and choose Video, which strips out meeting notes, transcripts, and chat files.
5. Click a result to play it.

You can also search from inside Teams:

1. Click the Search box at the top of the Teams window and type the meeting title.
2. Press Enter, then select the Files tab in the results panel.
3. Recordings appear alongside any documents shared in that meeting.

6. Share the Recording with Someone Who Was Not in the Meeting

Grant access to a colleague who was never invited, or ask the owner to do it for you.

If you own the file — you clicked Start recording, or it is a channel recording and you are on the team:

1. Open the recording's folder in OneDrive or SharePoint using Step 3 or Step 4.
2. Hover over the file row and click the circle that appears to the left of the file name to select it.
3. Click Share in the toolbar above the file list. The Send link dialog opens.
4. Click the permission line at the top of the dialog — it reads something like People in your organization with the link can view — to open Link settings.
5. Choose who the link works for: Anyone with the link, People in your organization, People with existing access, or Specific people. Confirm the permission dropdown below reads Can view rather than Can edit, then click Apply.
6. Type the names or email addresses in the To box and click Send, or click Copy link and paste the link into a chat or email yourself.

Note: Anyone with the link only appears when your organization allows external sharing. If it is missing or greyed out, use Specific people and enter the person's email address instead — that works for guests your organization has already approved.

If you were an attendee, not the organizer:

You can watch the recording, but you cannot re-share a file you do not own. Message the person who clicked Start recording and ask them to follow the steps above, either sharing it directly with your colleague or sending you a Can view link you can forward. If that person has left the organization, raise a ticket and tell IT: "I need a Teams meeting recording that is stored in a departed employee's OneDrive" — include the meeting title and date, and ask them to grant you access to the file.

7. Check the Expiry Date Before the Recording Deletes Itself

Recordings carry an automatic deletion date. Extend it or download a permanent copy.

1. Open the recording's folder in OneDrive or SharePoint.
2. Hover over the file row and click the circle to the left of the file name to select it.
3. Click the Details icon — a letter i inside a circle — at the top-right of the page. The details pane opens down the right-hand side.
4. Scroll the pane until you find the Expiration date line. It shows the exact date the file is moved to the recycle bin.
5. Click that date to open the expiration settings, then either pick a later date or select the option to remove the expiration entirely, and click Save. Only the file's owner can change this.
6. To keep a copy regardless, select the file and click Download in the toolbar. The .mp4 file saves to your Downloads folder and is yours permanently.

Verification: Reopen the Details pane. The Expiration date line now shows the new date, or has disappeared from the pane if you removed the expiration.

Troubleshooting

DANGER

Meeting recordings delete themselves. Microsoft 365 applies a default expiry of 120 days to every Teams recording, and your organization can set a shorter window. Once the date passes the file moves to the recycle bin, where it is held for 93 days and then destroyed. Download anything you need to keep — Step 7 shows you how.

Symptom / Error	Potential Cause	Solution
No recording card anywhere in the meeting chat	Nobody started a recording	Open the event's Recap tab (Step 2). If it lists no recording, the meeting was never recorded and no file exists.
Card shows a grey placeholder and will not play	Still uploading and processing	Recordings take several minutes to process after the meeting ends. Wait 10–15 minutes and reopen the chat.
A "Request access" page opens instead of the video	You were not an invited attendee	Click Request access on that page and name the meeting in the message box. The file's owner approves it from their email.
Recording is missing from the recorder's OneDrive	It was a channel meeting	Channel recordings go to the team's SharePoint site, never to OneDrive. Follow Step 4 instead.
An old link points at Microsoft Stream and fails	Stream classic was retired	The file moved to OneDrive or SharePoint. Search for the meeting title in OneDrive (Step 5) rather than following the old link.
The recording has vanished completely	Expiration date passed	Open Recycle bin in the left sidebar of OneDrive or the SharePoint site and restore the file. Deleted items are held there for 93 days. Then remove the expiration (Step 7).

Related Articles

• How to Record a Teams Meeting
• Understanding Where Your Files Live — OneDrive vs. SharePoint vs. Teams
• How to Find Past Chats and Meetings in Teams
• Understanding Teams Meetings — Features, Roles, and Best Practices
• How to Share Your Screen in a Teams Meeting
• How to Schedule a Teams Meeting

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