Key takeaways
- Zoom shows cloud recording storage under Account Management > Reports > Cloud Recording and lists every recording under Recording and Transcript Management, but reports file size, not hours.
- Convert size to hours by measuring a sample of your own recordings, or have a developer read exact start and end times from Zoom's cloud recording API.
- Zoom describes downloading one recording at a time, so large archives are usually pulled through the API; computer recordings stay on each host's device and must be gathered from there.
- You don't need to export anything to apply: have your hours, years of history and user count ready, and the data vendor anonymizes the records before any AI lab sees them.
01
What is Zoom data, and why do AI labs and data vendors buy it?
The short answer
Zoom data is the library of recorded video meetings and their transcripts that a company saves in Zoom: sales calls, customer onboarding sessions, design reviews and training. AI labs (companies that build and train AI models) and data vendors (companies that anonymize business records and package them for those labs) buy a copy because a recording captures how people talk through real work, which email and documents do not show.
What a Zoom account records
Zoom is a video meeting service, and a company's account can record a meeting in two places. A cloud recording is saved on Zoom's servers, where an admin can see it in the web portal. A computer recording is saved on the host's own laptop or desktop and never reaches Zoom's cloud.
A recording can include the video, the audio, the shared screen and a written transcript of what was said, all lined up on one timeline. Each recording is also labeled with a topic, a host and a date, which lets a buyer link a spoken discussion to the project or customer it was about.
Why a recorded meeting teaches an AI model something
An AI model learns by studying a very large number of examples and finding the patterns in them, and those examples are called training data. Written records show what was decided, but a meeting shows the talking that led to it: how a salesperson handles an objection, how a trainer explains a procedure, how a team argues its way to a design choice. A transcript turns that speech into text a model can study directly.
AI labs now want to train AI agents, software that carries out a job step by step, and an agent learns a job from records of that job being done. A data vendor can turn anonymized transcripts into worked examples that an agent studies like an answer key. The full mechanism is in AI training data: why AI companies want your company's data.
How Zoom fits into a dataset
Zoom is one of several apps in a company's dataset, which usually also includes email, documents and chat. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to. The price covers the whole dataset, not each app on its own, and what your data is worth explains what moves it.
02
Where does Zoom show how much data you have?
The short answer
Zoom shows cloud recording storage under Account Management > Reports > Cloud Recording, and lists every cloud recording under Account Management > Recording and Transcript Management. Only account owners and admins can open them. Zoom reports storage and file size, not hours, so you convert the total to hours using your own recordings or Zoom's API.
How to read your recording totals
Because the unit that matters for meetings is hours of recorded talk, the steps below end with a conversion. Each step names the menu you need.
- Log in to the Zoom web portal as the account owner or as an admin.
- Go to Account Management > Reports and open Cloud Recording. It shows storage used by date and by meeting host, and each view spans up to 30 days within the past 6 months, as Zoom's cloud recording report guide explains. Export as CSV file saves it.
- Next, choose Account Management > Recording and Transcript Management and click the Recordings tab. It lists all the account's cloud recordings and can be narrowed by date range and host.
- Press Export to get a CSV file that gives one row per recording: the host's email, the meeting ID, the topic, when it started, and how big the file is.
- To turn size into hours, pick a sample of recordings, note each one's length and file size, work out how many hours fit in a GB, and apply that rate to the total file size. A developer can instead read exact start and end times and total size from Zoom's cloud recording API.
Who can open the reports, and how much storage a plan includes
Both the Cloud Recording report and Recording and Transcript Management are restricted to account owners and admins. Storage is one shared pool for the whole account, and the size of the pool depends on the plan, as Zoom's storage capacity guide explains.
| Plan | Cloud recording storage |
|---|---|
| Pro | 10 GB per licensed user, pooled across the account. |
| Business | 10 GB per licensed user, pooled across the account. |
| Business Plus | 15 GB per licensed user, pooled across the account. |
| Enterprise | Unlimited. |
Extra storage can be bought as an add-on. A Business account with 10 licensed users, for example, shares 100 GB of included storage.
Why the figure can fall short of the all-time total
The reports see only recordings that are still in Zoom's cloud. A deleted cloud recording can usually be brought back for 30 days if the account keeps a trash for recordings, and then it is gone. Computer recordings never reach the cloud, so no report counts them.
03
What should you know about your Zoom data before you apply?
The short answer
Have three facts ready: how many hours of meetings your account has recorded, how many years the recordings cover and how many licensed users the account has. They go into the data manifest, the written summary of which apps hold your records, how many years each covers and roughly how much. You don't need to run an export to find them, and applying through micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, shares no data.
The hours of recordings
Zoom is measured in hours. When all you have is file sizes, time a few of your own recordings to learn how many GB make an hour, divide the total GB by that rate, and tell the vendor the result is an estimate.
The years of history
The years of history begin on the date of the oldest recording listed in the Recordings tab. Count only what is still stored, since a deleted cloud recording is usually recoverable for just 30 days.
The number of users
The count is the number of licensed users on the account. Recordings that people saved to their own computers sit outside cloud storage, so leave them out unless you intend to gather those files yourself.
What you don't need to do first
You don't need to export anything to apply, and you don't need to clean or scrub an export. The data vendor anonymizes the records before anyone else sees them, and nothing moves until a lawyer-reviewed license is signed. The application, the intro call and each later step are laid out in how to sell your company's data.
04
How do you export your Zoom recordings?
The short answer
An account owner or admin opens Account Management > Recording and Transcript Management, exports the list of recordings as a CSV file, then downloads each recording. Zoom describes only one-recording-at-a-time downloads, so large archives are usually pulled with a developer's help through Zoom's cloud recording API. Recordings saved to people's computers must be collected from those computers.
Who can export
Signing in as the account owner or as an admin who can edit account settings is enough to open Recording and Transcript Management.
Exporting the cloud recordings: the steps
- Log in as the account owner or an admin and go to Account Management > Recording and Transcript Management.
- On the Recordings tab, filter by date range and host if you wish, and press Export to save the full list as a CSV file. The list lets you track which recordings you have already downloaded.
- Open each recording and press Download to save its files, as Zoom's guide to managing cloud recordings describes. A recording must be fully processed before the portal offers it.
- For a large account, have a developer use Zoom's cloud recording API with an admin permission scope such as
recording:read:adminto list the recordings and download each file from its link. - Gather computer recordings by hand from the Zoom folder in each host's Documents folder.
What the export contains
Zoom produces MP4 files for video and M4A files for audio, plus TXT and VTT text files for chat and transcripts. A transcript is there only when audio transcription for cloud recordings was switched on at the time of the meeting.
Cloud recordings and computer recordings are separate
Computer recordings are invisible to an admin in the web portal. Zoom writes them to a Zoom folder inside Documents on the host's Windows, Mac or Linux machine, so only that machine holds the files.
Limits and leftovers to plan around
Zoom's help article walks through downloading a single recording and mentions no bulk option, so large archives go through the API. Anything deleted from the cloud is usually recoverable for 30 days when trash is on for recordings, and is lost after that.
What to settle before exporting recordings
Recordings capture the voices and faces of employees, customers and sometimes people from other companies, so the company's lawyer should confirm that licensing them is allowed under its consent notices, contracts and privacy policies. Is it legal to sell company data covers the questions to ask. Meetings about HR or legal matters can be filtered out before anything is exported.
How long an export takes
Zoom gives no standard time, and the work grows with the number of recordings and their size, since each file is fetched one by one or through the API. Start by exporting the CSV list, because it shows how many files there are to collect.
Sources: Zoom Support, Cloud recording storage capacity, Using the cloud recording report and Managing and sharing cloud recordings. Steps checked against these pages in November 2026.
05
What stays private when Zoom data is licensed?
The short answer
The company chooses which hosts, meeting topics and date ranges are in scope, and the data vendor replaces names and other personal details with consistent stand-ins before an AI lab sees anything. The company keeps ownership of its recordings, and the license covers defined records for a defined use.
You choose what is in scope
Hosts, meeting topics and date ranges are all your choice, which means HR and legal meetings never have to be part of the dataset. The data vendor also deletes records too sensitive to clean safely instead of anonymizing them.
Names are replaced before a lab sees them
Anonymization means replacing every detail that identifies a person or a client, such as a name or an email address, with a stand-in that is the same every time it appears. The transcript still reads in order, so a lab can learn from it, but it no longer says who the speakers are. The diagram below shows one short transcript before and after.
The method, including what is deleted outright and how you review samples, is in how company data is anonymized for AI training.
Ownership and payment
Licensing gives the buyer limited rights to a copy, while the company keeps ownership of the originals. The terms that matter, such as exclusivity, permitted use and deletion, are covered in data licensing. micro1 pays in full within 30 days of accepting the data, usually as a single payment.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
How much recording space does our Zoom plan give us?
Pro and Business plans give 10 GB for every licensed user, Business Plus gives 15 GB, and Enterprise has no cap. Everyone draws from one pool, and extra space is a paid add-on.
Can an admin get recordings that were saved on someone's laptop?
No, not through the web portal. Those files live only on the host's machine, in a Zoom folder under Documents, so someone has to collect them from each computer.
Do our Zoom recordings come with transcripts?
Only for meetings recorded while audio transcription for cloud recordings was switched on. Those meetings have a transcript file stored next to the recording; the others have none.
How long can we get back a Zoom recording we deleted?
Usually for 30 days, provided the account has trash enabled for recordings. Once that window closes, Zoom removes the file permanently.
Does Zoom show the total hours of our recorded meetings?
No. Zoom reports storage and file size, not hours. Estimate hours from a sample of your own recordings, or have a developer read exact start and end times from Zoom's cloud recording API.
Do we need to export Zoom before we apply?
No. The application takes about two minutes and shares no data. You only need your approximate hours of recordings, your years of history and your user count for the intro call, and the Recordings tab gives you what you need to estimate the first two. The recordings themselves are collected later, after you sign the license.
What is Zoom data worth to AI labs and data vendors?
Meeting recordings are priced as part of a whole dataset rather than on their own. Companies are paid $100K to $2M or more per dataset, according to micro1, and the price depends on the years of history and how completely the records show each job. What your data is worth explains the factors.
Bottom line
Know what is in Zoom, then see what it is worth
You don't need to export anything to apply. Apply in two minutes, describe your records on the intro call, and micro1, the data vendor we typically refer companies to, prices the whole dataset and sends an offer 1–2 days later.
Not legal, tax or financial advice. Figures come from micro1's published pages and public reporting as of November 2026.