Migration and Long-Term Storage
Migration and Long-Term Storage
Effective October 1, 2024, Tufts is activating a 2-year retention policy for Zoom cloud recordings. This section contains guidance on migrating Zoom cloud recording files to other locations (Box or Microsoft OneDrive) for long-term storage. This guidance is specifically geared toward recordings that were NOT generated for teaching or research purposes. For a demonstration, watch the "Zoom - Migrating Recorded Content" video!
General notes:
- Do not migrate ALL of your Zoom recording files. Only migrate files that are expiring soon that you will still need in the future.
- Don’t forget to migrate any automatically generated transcripts you might need as well!
- When migrating files associated with a meeting (e.g. recording, transcript, etc.), Zoom handles each file individually. They do NOT migrate together in a folder.
- Migrate recording files in batches. Trying to migrate too much all at once could cause the process to time out and fail.
- Be patient! The download/upload processes can take a while, especially if you are dealing with large files.
- Confirm you can view your video in the new location.
- If necessary later, you can transfer ownership of folders with recording files to someone else. This is particularly important if you will be leaving Tufts and the recording(s) need to be used by others after your departure.
- For broader reach and greater public discoverability by larger audiences, you may also consider hosting videos on YouTube.
- Per Tufts University’s Captioning Policy, the availability of captions must be considered when selecting a platform for your videos.
If you require long-term storage of teaching or research recordings, please refer to the appropriate resources:
If you are generating data for official research purposes, you should already have dedicated storage locations outlined in your grant proposals and other such documents. Please refer to those documents for guidance. For additional information, please visit: Data Storage for Research.
Additionally, be sure to follow all appropriate guidelines (HIPAA, etc.) for use of this data, including access, sharing, and retention.
The Zoom cloud storage space should NOT be relied on for long-term storage and use/sharing of recordings, especially recordings that are meant for public viewing! Instead, these recordings should be migrated to other platforms that are better suited for such purposes (e.g. Box, OneDrive, Canvas) and shared from there as needed.
If you've already shared recordings directly from the Zoom cloud storage space (e.g. direct invites or available via hyperlink or embedded on a website), you will need to re-share after migrating the content to its new location.
Follow the directions below to create a .CSV report of the recordings you have in the Zoom cloud storage space. The report can be opened in Excel, contains helpful details (recording dates, views, downloads, last-access dates, etc.), and can be edited and used as a reference.
- Log in to the Tufts Zoom website with your Tufts credentials.
- Select the Recordings page in the left-hand menu.
- Click the Export button toward the top right of the page.
- Processing will begin. Be patient, this may take a minute. When processing is complete, a .CSV report will be made available for you to download. Download the report.
- Open the report in Microsoft Excel.
- Review the report and make note of any recordings you want to migrate. You may want to:
- Highlight recordings that you intend to save.
- Create a new column called “Saved” (or something similar) where you track files you have already migrated to another storage location.
- Log in to the Tufts Zoom website with your Tufts credentials.
- Select the Recordings page in the left-hand menu.
- Find the recording and click on it. (Reminder: Recordings may be located in the Trash if they were deleted in the past 30 days. For more information on deleting and recovering cloud recordings, see the Zoom Recordings page.)
- Click the appropriate button to download ALL of the recording files or individual files as needed. Make a note of where you are downloading the files to.
- Make a note of where you are saving the files to! If your browser doesn’t ask you to choose a destination, they may be saving to your computer’s Downloads folder automatically.
Both Box and Microsoft OneDrive are viable destinations for migrated Zoom cloud recordings. Both are intended for personal file storage and have options for sharing content with others. One important difference between the two is that OneDrive has a more robust video management and playback experience, including custom thumbnails, caption/transcript management, video chapters, and more.

A Note About Accessibility
Because transcript and captioning options for videos stored in Box are limited, OneDrive (or YouTube, for even broader reach) is recommended for sharing to larger audiences. Through OneDrive, you can go into a video’s settings and either upload a transcript file (such as the automatically-generated transcript file generated by Zoom) or let Microsoft generate a transcript from scratch. The transcript can then be edited as needed and used to provide captions for your video during playback. Learn more about video transcripts and captions in OneDrive.
- Log in to the Tufts Box website with your Tufts credentials.
- Navigate to the folder you want to save the recording file(s) to.
- Once you are in the correct folder, click the New button and select File Upload.
- A file manager window should appear. Select the file(s) to be uploaded and click Open.
- The upload process will begin and a progress meter will appear toward the bottom of the page. Do not close this browser tab or navigate away from the page until the upload is complete.
- Once you are sure the files have uploaded successfully, you can delete the LOCAL copies from your computer to clear up space.
- Log in to the Microsoft OneDrive website with your Tufts credentials.
- Select My Files in the left-hand navigation menu.
- Navigate to the folder you want to save the recording file(s) to.
- Once you are in the correct folder, click the Add new button and select Files Upload.
- A file manager window should appear. Select the file(s) to be uploaded and click Open.
- The upload process will begin. Do not close this browser tab or navigate away from the page until the upload is complete.
- Once you are sure the files have uploaded successfully, you can delete the LOCAL copies from your computer to clear up space.