Allow External Participants to Record a Zoom Meeting
In many teams—especially when meetings include clients, partners, or external consultants—it’s common for someone outside your organization to request permission to record the meeting locally.
By default, Zoom often restricts this. To fix it, the host must enable recording permission requests for external participants.
Below is how to configure it.
1. Enable recording permissions in Zoom settings (recommended)
Zoom allows you to define who can request recording access during meetings.
Step by step:
Log into your Zoom account from a web browser
Go to Settings
Open the Recording tab
Find the section:
Record to computer files
Under “Who can request host permission to record?”, check:
✅ Internal meeting participants
✅ External meeting participants
This allows people outside your organization to request permission to record.
2. How an external participant requests recording during the meeting
Once enabled, external attendees will see an option inside the meeting Security menu.
During the call:
The participant clicks Security
Selects:
Request Local Recording Permission
This sends a request directly to the host.
3. Approving the request as the host
When a participant requests recording access:
Zoom shows a notification to the host
The host can approve it immediately
Once approved, the participant can start a local recording on their computer
diio Recommendation
If you regularly meet with clients or external stakeholders, we recommend keeping External meeting participants enabled to avoid friction at the start of meetings.