Microsoft Teams Recording Expiration: How to Change or Recover It
Microsoft Teams recording expiration: the 120 day default, how to extend or remove the expiry date, admin settings, and how to recover an expired recording.
You open the chat for a meeting from a few months ago, click the recording, and get a message that it is no longer available. Nobody deleted it. Microsoft Teams recording expiration did the job automatically, because every Teams meeting recording carries an expiry date from the moment it is saved.
This guide explains how Teams recording expiration works, how long recordings last by default, how to check and change the expiration date on a single recording, how admins change the policy for everyone, and how to recover an expired Teams recording before it is gone for good.
Do Microsoft Teams Recordings Expire?
Yes. Unless your admin has turned the feature off, every new Teams meeting recording and its transcript is given an expiration date when it is saved. By default that date is 120 days after the recording is created. When the date arrives, OneDrive or SharePoint moves the file to the recycle bin automatically, and the link in the meeting chat stops working.
Microsoft built this as a storage feature, not a security one. According to Microsoft’s documentation, a one hour Teams recording is around 400 MB, and the file counts against the organizer’s OneDrive quota (or the team’s SharePoint quota for channel meetings). Auto expiration quietly clears out recordings that nobody watches anymore.
A few details worth knowing:
- The policy covers meetings and events. Webinars and town halls follow the same expiration setting as regular meetings. Published event recordings are the exception, with a 30 day expiry that can be extended to 90 days.
- Education tenants are stricter. The maximum default expiration time for Office 365 A1 users is 30 days.
- Watching a recording does not extend it. The countdown runs from the creation date regardless of how often the video is opened.
- Downloaded copies do not expire. The expiration applies to the file stored in OneDrive or SharePoint. An MP4 you downloaded to your computer is an ordinary file.
When a recording has expired, people who open it see a banner that reads: “The recording is currently unavailable. Please check with organizer whether it’s still being uploaded, has expired, or has been deleted.” If you see that message and the meeting was months ago, expiration is the most likely cause.
How Long Do Teams Recordings Last? The Short Version
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Default expiration | 120 days after the recording is created |
| Range an admin can set | 1 to 99,999 days, or never expire |
| Where the file lives | The organizer’s OneDrive Recordings folder, or the channel’s SharePoint site for channel meetings |
| What happens on expiry | The file moves to the OneDrive or SharePoint recycle bin and the owner gets an email |
| Recovery window | About 90 days in the recycle bin, then it is purged permanently |
| After recovery | The recording no longer expires automatically |
| Who can change the date | Anyone with edit permission on the file, usually the organizer and co-organizers |
How to Check and Change the Expiration Date of a Teams Recording
You do not need to be an admin to change the expiration date on a specific recording. You only need edit permission on the file, which the meeting organizer and co-organizers have automatically.
Step 1: Find the recording
Open the meeting chat in Teams and look for the recording card. You can also open the past meeting from your Teams calendar and check the Recordings and Transcripts tab, or go straight to the Recordings folder in the organizer’s OneDrive.
Step 2: Open the recording on its player page
Click the recording to open it in the browser. The chat card usually includes a short note about when the recording will expire, with a “here” link that opens the same player page.
Step 3: Select the expiration countdown
Beneath the video you will see the expiration countdown, for example a note that the recording expires in a certain number of days. Select it to open the expiration options.
Step 4: Choose a new timeframe or remove the expiration
Pick a longer timeframe from the dropdown to extend the recording, or choose Remove expiration so the recording is kept until someone deletes it. Microsoft’s help page on finding and managing meeting recordings in Teams documents the same steps.
Two things catch people out:
- The chat message does not update. The note saying the recording will expire stays on the chat card even after you remove the expiration. The setting on the file is what counts.
- Only new recordings follow a changed policy. If your admin raises the default, recordings that already exist keep their old date. You have to change those one by one.
How to make a Teams recording never expire
Use the same steps and choose Remove expiration. For the whole organization, an admin can set the default so new recordings never expire (see the next section). There is no user-level setting that applies to all of your future recordings at once.
How Admins Change the Teams Recording Expiration Policy
If your team keeps hitting the 120 day wall, the fix belongs in the Teams admin center. The expiration setting is part of the meeting policy, so it can apply to everyone through the Global policy or only to specific users and groups through a custom policy.
- In the Teams admin center, go to Meetings and then Meeting policies.
- Open the Global policy or the custom policy assigned to the users in question.
- Scroll to Recording & transcription.
- Use the Recordings and transcriptions automatically expire toggle to turn expiration on or off.
- With the toggle on, set the Default expiration time in days. Any value from 1 to 99,999 is accepted.
- Save, and assign the policy to users or groups if it is a custom one.
Admins who prefer PowerShell can use the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet with the NewMeetingRecordingExpirationDays parameter. The value is the number of days, and a value of -1 (available only through PowerShell) sets recordings to never expire. Microsoft’s page on managing the Teams recording expiration policy has the exact command.
Keep two caveats in mind:
- Changes are not retroactive. Microsoft states that changes to this setting only affect newly created recordings and transcripts. Existing recordings keep the expiration date they were given unless someone edits them individually.
- Expiration is not retention. If your organization has legal or regulatory rules for how long recordings must be kept (or must be deleted), those belong in Microsoft Purview retention labels and policies, which are enforced separately from the expiration countdown. A longer expiry does not satisfy a retention requirement, and a retention label can delete a recording on its own schedule. Our meeting recording policy template covers how to write those rules down for your team.
How to Recover an Expired Teams Recording
An expired recording is not deleted immediately. It is moved to the recycle bin of the location where it was saved, and the owner receives an email when that happens. From that point there is a window of roughly 90 days to restore it (Microsoft’s documentation cites 90 to 93 days depending on the page). After the recycle bin is purged, the recording cannot be recovered by anyone, including Microsoft support.
Non-channel meetings: the organizer’s OneDrive
- Work out whose OneDrive holds the recording. For scheduled and ad hoc meetings it is the organizer’s. For 1:1 and group calls it belongs to the person who pressed Record.
- That person signs in to OneDrive on the web and selects Recycle bin in the left navigation.
- Find the recording file (it is usually named after the meeting) and select Restore.
- The file returns to the Recordings folder, and the link in the meeting chat starts working again.
Channel meetings: the team’s SharePoint site
- In Teams, open the channel, go to the Files tab, select More and then Open in SharePoint.
- Select Recycle bin in the site navigation. If it is not visible, open Site contents and look for the recycle bin in the top right.
- Tick the recording and select Restore. Anyone with edit permission can restore items here, not only the person who recorded.
- If the file is missing, a site collection administrator may still find it in the second stage recycle bin.
Once restored, a recording no longer expires automatically, so you do not need to repeat this later.
If the recording is not in the recycle bin
- Ask the organizer whether it was deleted on purpose rather than expired. The banner wording is the same in both cases.
- Check whether anyone downloaded a copy. Downloaded files are unaffected by expiration.
- Check whether the meeting was recorded by another tool. Many teams keep a second recording outside Microsoft 365 for exactly this reason.
If you are chasing a missing recording on another platform, the same logic applies. See our guides on a Zoom recording not showing up and on managing Google Meet recordings in Google Drive.
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How to Never Lose a Teams Recording Again
Recovering files from a recycle bin is a fine emergency plan and a poor routine. A few habits remove the problem.
Decide which recordings matter before they expire
Not every standup needs to live forever. Agree as a team which types of meetings should be kept (customer calls, training sessions, decision meetings, interviews) and remove the expiration on those the day they are recorded. For the rest, let the default do its job and free up storage.
Download important recordings
Organizers and co-organizers can download the MP4 from OneDrive or SharePoint. Store it in the project folder where the rest of the work lives. The transcript is a separate file, so download it as well if you need the text.
Put the rules in writing
If your company relies on recordings, write down who records, how long recordings are kept and where copies go. Teams that must meet GDPR or other retention obligations should treat that as part of their compliance checklist rather than an afterthought.
Keep a copy outside your Microsoft 365 tenant
The simplest way to escape the expiration policy is to have a recording that was never subject to it. Record Meeting is a Chrome extension that records Teams calls directly from the Teams web app in your browser. Join the meeting with Continue on this browser, click the record button, and the call is captured from your own browser tab with no bot joining the participant list.
When you leave, the recording uploads to your private Record Meeting workspace, where it stays until you delete it. There is no expiration countdown, and recording storage is unlimited on every plan. Each recording also comes with a transcript in 50+ languages, speaker labels and an AI summary with action items, and you can share it with a link or download the MP4 and transcript. It works whether you are the organizer, a participant or an external guest, and it does not depend on your tenant’s recording policy.
Two reminders: tell participants you are recording, and follow your organization’s acceptable use rules exactly as you would with the native recorder. Our guide on how to share meeting notes with your team covers what to do with the recording afterwards.
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion
Microsoft Teams recording expiration is easy to live with once you know the rules. Recordings last 120 days by default, the owner can extend or remove the date from the player page, admins can change the default for new recordings, and expired files wait in the recycle bin for roughly 90 days before they disappear. Check the expiration on recordings that matter, download the ones you cannot afford to lose, and consider keeping a copy outside your tenant with a browser-based recorder like Record Meeting so that no expiry date ever catches you out.
