Understanding recording file formats

Zoom computer recordings and cloud recordings save in MP4, M4A, M3U, TXT, CC.VTT, and VTT formats.

How to understand Zoom recording file formats

After you have found your computer recordings or viewed your cloud recordings on the web portal, you will see some of the following file formats:

• MP4: Audio/Video file that is named video[random number].mp4 by default.
  For example: video98796876.mp4 ;
• M4A: ;Audio-only file that is named audio[random number].m4a by default.
  For example: audio98796876.m4a
• M3U: ;Playlist file to play all individual MP4 files (Windows only) that is named playback[random number].m3u by default. ;
  For example: playback98796876.m3u
• TXT: ;Text file that is named chat.txt by default. This file contains in-meeting chat messages that were saved. A chat file saved computerly will include chat messages sent to everyone and any chat messages sent to/from the participant who saves the chat.
• CC.VTT: Text file that contains closed captioning for the cloud recording.
• VTT: Text file that contains the audio transcription for the cloud recording.

If recording separate audio tracks for each participant (computer recording only), each participant's audio track will be named audio[Name][random number].m4a ;by default. For example, audioJohnSmith98796876.m4a

Note: Recording screen sharing uses about 20MB of storage per hour, while recording video uses about 200MB of storage an hour. This is an approximation, since the resolution and types of video or screen sharing content can affect the amount of storage used.