Automatically upload Zoom recordings to Google Drive

Naming and uploading Zoom recordings is a pain!

Zoom is the virtual meetings app of choice for many business, including ours.

Using Zoom is a piece of cake.

But manually downloading, naming and uploading call recordings into your cloud storage app (Google Drive in our case) is a pain.

Especially if you do as many Zoom calls as we do!

In this article, I’ll show you how to completely automate this process.

When you’re done, you’ll be able to just hop on a Zoom call, hit record to Cloud, and the automation will do the rest. 🙂

Requirements

Here’s what you’ll need to do this:

• Zoom – you’ll need a paid Zoom account
• Zapier – you’ll also need a paid Zapier account so that you can use the multi-zap feature (or, we can create and host this automation FOR you!)
• Google Drive (or similar storage service that works with Zapier, e.g. Dropbox, etc.)
• Google Calendar (or similar calendar app that connects with Zapier)
• Calendly – OPTIONAL if you want to connect with a scheduling app.
• Airtable – Also optional, if you want to store your recordings in a central place, tag them, organize them, and so on.

Creating the Zoom automation

Important: you will need a paid Zoom account for this tutorial.

The paid version lets you save your recordings in the Zoom Cloud.

The free version doesn't.

Zoom settings

1 – Log in to the web version of Zoom and go to My account -> Settings -> Recording

2 – Make sure that the Cloud recording setting is active.



3 – Start your Zoom call



4 – Start recording

Go to Record -> Record to the Cloud (or you can press ALT + C).



5 – End your call



Link Calendly with Google Calendar

At MemberFix, we use Calendly to schedule meetings.

If you use a different scheduling app you can still use this automation.

Just make sure that your scheduler has a Zapier app.

1 – Login to Calendly

2 – Go to the Integrations tab

3 – Find Calendar Connections

4 – Click on Add Calendar Account



Now that Calendly is linked with Google, each meeting that is booked through this app will appear in Google Calendar.

Of course, you can also add manual meetings in GCalendar, but we prefer this little automation. 

Configure Google Drive

1 – Create a Google Drive folder

If you want to share these recordings with others, make sure that you create a new folder that’s shared with your team.

We use a folder called “Calls” and it’s shared with our entire organization.

2 – Set permissions

Google Drive offers two ways to share things with others:

• Restricted: Only people added will have access to the folder
• Anyone with the link: Anyone with the link will have access to the folder

Depending on your preference, pick the one that suits you best.

We are using the restricted option because we want to share the files only with our organization.



Configure Airtable Table called “Calls”

One of our key values at MemberFix is “radical transparency”.

Therefore, we make all company calls available to the entire team in a nice, organized Airtable table.

If you want to do the same thing, create an Airtable table named “Calls” in your base.

1 – Open Airtable 

2 – Create the table named “Calls”

If you are new to Airtable, then you will need to create a new Airtable Base first

If you are already using Airtable, you just need to create a new table

Create the following column names:

• Date: the date of the call 
• Caller: who made the call – this is linked with the person who uploads the video in Google Drive
• Notes: in case the team member wants to mention something important that happened during the meeting
• Recording: this is where we can find the Google Drive link



Related: read the full tutorial on sending your Zoom recordings to Airtable

Configure your Zap

You need a paid Zapier account for this step.

(If you don’t want to pay $50/mo for a Zapier account, we can set up and host your automation on our business account for only $3/mo per zap.)

You can find the basic integration between Zoom and Google Drive here. 

1 – Configure the trigger 

Here you will learn how to configure the trigger for this Zap.

1.1 – Choose App and event

• Choose App and event: Zoom
• Trigger event: New recording



1.2 – Choose account

• Zoom account: log in to Zoom using your account



1.3 – Set up trigger

• Meeting type: Meeting



1.4 – Test trigger

If everything works correctly, you should get the below message confirming that the Zap has found a recording.



2 – Formatting the date (optional)

This is optional and it is done if you want the date to look in a specific way.

2.1 – Choose App and event

• Formatter by Zapier
• Action event: Date/Time



2.2 – Set up action

In this step, we will actually choose how we want to format our date.

• Transform: Format (Change a date or time to a new format or style);
• Values: Input (Date you would like to format) – here you will choose the metadata “Start Time” from the first (the trigger), “New Recording in Zoom”;
• To format: Provide the format that the date is converted to – here you will choose how you want your date to look like
• To Timezone: Choose a timezone the date should be converted to (Default: UTC);
• From Format: Pick the format of your original date (for example, YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:ss).
• From timezone: The default timezone is UTC



2.3 – Test action

Here, the Zap will test if the formatting is working properly. It will also show how the date will look like.



If you are not happy with the results, you can return to the “Set up action” and change the settings to your desire.

3 – Find an event in Google Calendar

We have implemented this because we want the final result (the name of the recording) to look as clean as possible.

Being linked with Calendly, all meetings in Google Calendar will have a title.

Therefore, we can use this title to rename our Zoom recordings!

3.1 – Choose App and event

• Google Calendar
• Action event: Find event – the Zap will look through your Google Calendar and find the event linked to your Zoom meeting



3.2 – Choose account

• Google Calendar account: log in using your Google Mail address – the same address you have used when you have linked Calendly to Google Calendar (this way, you can see all the scheduled meetings)



3.3 – Set up action

Here we will tell the Zap what to look after in Google Calendar. 

• Calendar: choose the Google Calendar account you have logged in earlier in the “Choose account” step
• Search term: write the term you want to search after 

For example, our Calendly meetings’ title looks like this: “Vic Dorfman and ”, so we have put as the search term “Vic”.

This way, the Zap will know to look for all Google Calendar meetings that include the text, “Vic”.

• Start time: this will be the start time of the Zoom meeting



3.4 – Test action

In this step, the Zap will test if everything is working properly => if it finds a meeting in the Google Calendar



4 – Upload File in Google Drive

This is the final of the Zap. Here we will be able to rename the Zoom recording before uploading to Google Drive.

4.1 – Choose App and event

• Google Drive
• Action event: Upload file



4.2 – Choose account

Pick the account where the folder from “Configure Google Drive” is.



4.3 – Set up action

This is the where we rename the Zoom recording.

• Drive: pick the account from the “Choose account” step
• Folder: search for the folder you have created for Zoom calls
• File: search for the metadata “Video files Download URL” from the “Configure Zoom” step; 
• Convert to Document?: false – we don’t want a document, we want a video file
• File Name: Choose how your file name will look like in Google Drive



At MemberFix, we want our title to look like this: “ | .

We have already formatted the date (2 – Formatting the date) and linked Google Calendar in this Zap (3 – Find an event in Google Calendar].

Therefore, we will pick “Start time” from 2 and “Summary” from 3.

Of course, you can choose whatever information you want to be in the title, but this is just how we want it.

Keep it simple! 🙂

 



4.4 – Test action

In this final step, if everything works properly, you will be able to see the file uploaded in Google Drive.

Then, just turn on the Zap and future meetings will be automatically uploaded to your Google Drive folder.



Testing that everything works

After you have turned on the Zap, now it’s time to test it.

1 – Open Zoom and start recording a few seconds;

2 – Close the meeting;

3 – Wait a few moments/minutes for the Zap to do its magic;

4 – Check the Google Drive folder to see the newly uploaded file

All done!

If you have any questions, leave a comment below. 🙂