Teams recordings are ordinary files. Once you know which drive a recording was
written to, the ticket becomes a file-recovery question rather than a Teams question.
Where the file goes
| Meeting type | Storage location |
|---|---|
| Scheduled or ad-hoc (non-channel) | The recorder's OneDrive, under /Recordings/ |
| Channel meeting | The team's SharePoint site, in the channel folder under /Recordings/ |
"The recorder" means whoever pressed record — not the organiser, if they differ.
This trips people up: an attendee who started the recording owns the file, and if
that attendee leaves the organisation the file leaves with their OneDrive.
Attendees are granted view access automatically at recording time. That grant lives
on the file, so anything that resets the file's permissions also breaks the link in
the meeting chat.
Auto-expiration
Meeting policies can set an expiry, commonly 60, 120 or 365 days. The expiry is
stamped on the file when it is created, from the policy in force at that moment.
Two consequences:
- Changing the policy today does not rescue files already created under the old
one, and does not retroactively extend them.
- A recording that "disappeared" on a specific date, deleted by the *Meeting
expiration service* rather than by a person, has simply reached its date. Nothing
is broken.
Expired recordings go to the owner's recycle bin. They are recoverable from the
first-stage bin, then the second-stage bin, for as long as the standard 93-day
retention window allows.
Recovering one
- Look up the recording: which meeting, who recorded, which drive, current state.
- Check the owner's OneDrive recycle bin (first stage, then second stage).
- Restore it. It returns to the original path with the original URL, so the link in
the meeting chat resolves again, and the attendee permissions come back with it.
- Confirm with the requester that the chat link opens — not just that the console
says restored.
- Restored items have their expiry cleared, but the next policy sweep can still
reach them. If the content matters long term, move a copy somewhere governed by a
retention policy.
When it is genuinely gone
Past the second-stage recycle bin, the recording is not recoverable by the service
desk. If the organisation holds a retention policy covering that location, the
compliance team may be able to recover it; if not, it is gone. Say so plainly rather
than raising hope.
Related
- OneDrive and SharePoint recycle bins
- SharePoint permission inheritance