Does Microsoft Teams Record Calls Automatically?

No. Microsoft Teams does not automatically record calls or meetings by default.

Someone has to click the button. No silent recording. No background capture. The person who hits record needs permission to do so, and everyone in the meeting gets a notification banner plus an audio alert when recording starts.

But "default behavior" and "what your tenant is configured to do" are different things. Here's what actually matters.

Two Types of Recording: Convenience vs. Compliance

Microsoft separates Teams recording into two categories, and they work completely differently.

Convenience recording is the manual recording most users know. Someone clicks "Start recording" during a meeting or call. The recording saves to OneDrive or SharePoint. The file expires after 120 days unless someone changes the settings.

Compliance recording is automatic, policy-based, and invisible to users. It requires a third-party solution (Microsoft doesn't build this themselves), and it's designed for regulated industries where every call must be captured. Finance, healthcare, legal. If your client has a compliance recording bot assigned to their account, their calls are being recorded automatically whether they know it or not.

The distinction matters because clients will ask "are my calls being recorded?" and the answer depends entirely on what policies their admin configured.

Where Recordings Get Stored

This changed in 2021 and some documentation still references the old way. Here's the current state:

Non-channel meetings (regular calls, 1:1s, ad-hoc meetings): Recordings save to the meeting organizer's OneDrive, in a folder called "Recordings." Not the person who clicked record. The organizer.

Channel meetings (meetings started from a Teams channel): Recordings save to the SharePoint site for that channel, under Documents > Recordings.

1:1 calls: Same as non-channel meetings. Organizer's OneDrive. But for calls, "organizer" means the person who started the call.

Microsoft Stream is no longer the storage location. All recordings now live in OneDrive or SharePoint. Stream (on SharePoint) is just the video player now, not a separate storage system.

This matters for a few reasons:

• Recordings count against OneDrive/SharePoint storage quotas
• A 1-hour recording is roughly 400MB
• If the organizer leaves the company, the recording goes wherever their OneDrive goes (typically gets deleted after 30 days unless IT intervenes)

The 120-Day Expiration That No One Reads

By default, Teams meeting recordings expire and auto-delete after 120 days.

The file owner gets an email warning. The recording moves to the recycle bin. If no one recovers it within 93 days, it's gone permanently.

Most users don't know this. They assume recordings exist forever. Then they need last quarter's client meeting and discover Microsoft silently cleaned house.

What admins can do

Set a different expiration (1 to 99,999 days):

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -NewMeetingRecordingExpirationDays 365

Disable expiration entirely:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -NewMeetingRecordingExpirationDays -1

This only affects new recordings. Existing recordings keep their original expiration date. And if your tenant has Microsoft Purview retention policies, those override the Teams expiration settings.

For A1 licenses (common in education), the default expiration is only 30 days.

PSTN Call Recording: Different Rules

Recording external phone calls (PSTN) through Teams Phone works differently than meeting recording.

PSTN call recording is off by default. It requires specific licensing (E3 with Teams Phone add-on, or E5) and admin configuration.

To enable it:

1. Teams Admin Center > Voice > Calling policies
2. Turn on "Cloud recording for calling"
3. Assign the policy to users who need it

Or via PowerShell:

Set-CsTeamsCallingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowCloudRecordingForCalls $true

This gives users the ability to manually record calls. It doesn't auto-record.

For automatic PSTN recording (compliance scenarios), you need a certified third-party compliance recording solution. Microsoft maintains a list of certified partners. The third-party solution installs a bot that joins calls and captures media based on policies you define.

Recording Consent and Legal Considerations

Teams displays a banner and plays an audio notification when recording starts. All participants see it. That's Microsoft's contribution to consent.

But "notification" and "legal consent" aren't the same thing.

One-party consent states (most of the US): The person recording only needs their own consent. They can record without anyone else explicitly agreeing.

Two-party (all-party) consent states: Every participant must consent before recording. This includes California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington, and Delaware.

The complication: If participants are in different states, the strictest law typically applies. A call between someone in Texas (one-party) and someone in California (two-party) should follow California's rules.

Microsoft's 2025/2026 updates are adding explicit recording consent as an admin-configurable policy. When enabled, participants get muted when recording starts and must actively consent before their audio/video is captured.

For 1:1 VoIP calls, this started rolling out in January 2026. PSTN users are currently auto-consented, with explicit consent support coming later.

To enable explicit consent:

Set-CsTeamsCallingPolicy -Identity Global -ExplicitRecordingConsent Enabled

Who Can Start a Recording?

For meetings: Only presenters can record. Attendees cannot. The meeting organizer controls who has presenter rights.

For 1:1 calls: Either party can record if their admin has enabled cloud recording for calls.

Guests and external participants cannot initiate recordings. But if an external participant has compliance recording enabled in their tenant, their bot will still record the call from their side. Your org gets notified, and you can remove them from the meeting if that's a problem.

Transcription: Tied to Recording (Sort Of)

When recording starts, transcription typically starts too. This is configurable at the policy level.

Transcripts save as .vtt files alongside the recording in OneDrive/SharePoint. They follow the same expiration and retention rules as recordings.

In early 2025, Microsoft made transcription on by default for new tenants and tenants that haven't customized their meeting policies. Existing customized policies weren't changed.

Transcripts are searchable in Microsoft 365. They're also accessible for eDiscovery in Purview.

Admins can disable transcription entirely:

Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -AllowTranscription $false

Compliance Recording: When Manual Isn't Enough

If a client is in a regulated industry (MiFID II, HIPAA, Dodd-Frank, GDPR record-keeping requirements), convenience recording won't cut it.

Manual recording has problems:

• Users forget to start recording
• Users can stop recording to avoid scrutiny
• No centralized management or audit trails
• Files expire automatically

Compliance recording solves this by making recording automatic, policy-based, and tamper-resistant.

Microsoft doesn't provide built-in compliance recording. You need a third-party partner solution. These solutions:

• Automatically record based on user/group/call type policies
• Store recordings in a separate system with WORM (write-once, read-many) storage
• Provide search, playback, audit logging, and legal hold
• Integrate with retention and compliance systems

Certified partners include vendors like NICE, Verint, ASC Technologies, and others listed in Microsoft's certification program.

Licensing requirements: Microsoft 365 A3/A5/E3/E5/G3/G5/Business Premium or Business Standard.

As of December 2025, Microsoft added compliance recording support for call queues, allowing policy-based recording at the queue level rather than per-agent.

Admin Checklist: Configuring Recording for a Tenant

Here's what to check when setting up or auditing a client's tenant:

Meeting recording policy

• Teams Admin Center > Meetings > Meeting policies
• Cloud recording: On/Off
• Transcription: On/Off
• Recordings automatically expire: On/Off
• Default expiration time: 1-99,999 days (or -1 for never)

Calling policy (for 1:1 and PSTN)

• Teams Admin Center > Voice > Calling policies
• Cloud recording for calling: On/Off
• Transcription: On/Off
• Explicit recording consent: On/Off

Storage verification

• OneDrive and SharePoint must be enabled for users
• Check storage quotas (recordings count against limits)
• Verify retention policies in Purview don't conflict with expiration settings

Compliance requirements

• If regulated: implement third-party compliance recording
• Document consent approach based on applicable laws
• Configure explicit consent if operating in all-party consent jurisdictions

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References

• Introduction to recording Microsoft Teams calls and meetings - Microsoft Learn
• Manage Teams recording policies for meetings and events - Microsoft Learn
• Teams meeting recording and transcript storage in OneDrive and SharePoint - Microsoft Learn
• Configure call recording, transcription, and captions in Teams - Microsoft Learn
• Introduction to Microsoft Teams third-party compliance recording - Microsoft Learn
• Overview: Recording and transcription for Teams meetings, events, and calls - Microsoft Learn

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