Saving Zoom Recordings

Saving Zoom Recordings

The rapid growth of remote learning via Canvas and Zoom has greatly exceeded the State Chancellor’s Office estimates for storage of recording stored in the Zoom cloud. Despite securing nearly a petabyte of storage for the CCC system (equivalent to roughly 500 billion standard printed pages), the limits are being reached.  As a result, the State Chancellor’s Office plans to delete all recordings created prior to August 15, 2020 to free up space. These files will be permanently deleted from the Zoom Cloud on June 30, 2021. The following information and procedures will assist with managing this change and preserving recordings.

Please be aware of the following to help determine what needs to be saved:

  • The Chancellor’s Office will only delete recordings made prior to August 15, 2020.  Any recordings made after that will be kept at this time.  These procedures are only necessary for recordings older than August 15, 2020. No action need be taken on more recent recordings.
  • Recordings that contain identifiable information of students, including image, voice and/or name, may not be shared with other classes and sections.  This means there is no need to save a recording with identifying information from prior to August 15, 2020 for the sole purpose of using it in other sections.
  • Users have options in how they “save” a recording that dramatically impact the recording’s file size. Depending on the recording’s initial settings there may be options for the format of the file that can be downloaded (shared screen with speaker view, audio only, audio transcript).  File sizes vary based on the file type.
  • Users must download their Zoom Cloud recordings before uploading them to another service. To do this
    • Log into ConferZoom
    • Select Recordings on the left-hand navigation
    • Select Recordings prior to 08/15/2020 using the “From – To” filter at the top of the page and click “Search”.  This generates a list of recordings that will be deleted on June 30, 2021.
    • Click on the desired recording from the list presented to display the file options available for download.
    • Click on the desired option and a new tab will open.
    • Click on “Download” in the upper right corner.
    • Your file is now ready to be saved locally or uploaded to another service.

With this in mind, there are a few options available to preserve recordings made prior to August 15, 2020.

Options to Preserve Recordings
Canvas Studio
  • This is ideal for use within Canvas shells and makes use of the Canvas security features to limit access within a given course shell.
  • Instructions on uploading videos to Canvas Studio can be found here: https://community.canvaslms.com/t5/Studio/How-do-I-upload-media-in-Canvas-Studio/ta-p/1705.
CCC TechConnect Cloud (3C Media Solutions)
YouTube Unlisted Videos
  • Unlisted videos are NOT password protected, rather they contain a unique URL that can be shared with anyone. 
  • This is helpful if you want to make the content available outside the Canvas shell.
  • A typical use case would be sharing pre-recorded class demonstrations.
  • Recordings containing student identifying information (see above) should never be posted to YouTube.
  • Instructors will need a YouTube account to upload videos.
Download and Save Locally to Your Computer
  • Files can be saved on the computer, an SD drive or external hard drive.
  • Files can be uploaded to MS 365 OneDrive (similar to Google Drive) which will be generally available prior to Fall 2021.