Google Meet is making an important change to who can download recordings

There are plenty of reasons why you might want to download or copy a Google Meet call. Maybe you missed a part of the meeting and want to go back to see what you missed. Or maybe someone was absent, so you want to send them the recording. In a couple of weeks, you’ll be able to do just that without the need for permission from the recording owner.

The option to download or copy a Google Meet call currently exists. However, due to the way this feature is set up at the moment, the recording owner must first allow you to do so. Also, as a direct consequence, this disables the “Ask Gemini” functionality within the Drive viewer for non-file owners.

However, starting on April 30, 2026, this default setting will change. According to Google, videos recorded after this date will allow viewers to download or copy by default. If you’re the recording owner, you will now have to manually restrict this setting on every video if you don’t want anyone downloading or copying it. You can also uncheck the “Let Users download and copy Meet Recordings” option in the Admin console if you want to keep downloads disabled by default, but you’ll have to do this before April 30.

It should be noted that this change does not affect videos that were recorded before April 30. Viewers will still be unable to download or copy those recordings, unless you changed the settings for any of those videos.

This update will be available for business and enterprise users, as well as those in education. It looks like this change is skipping general Google account owners for now.