Can I record just audio on Zoom?

April 13, 2021 6:05 PM

I have to conduct some interviews and some of them will likely take place over zoom. My editor wants the audio files of my interviews, and I'm wondering if there's a way to record only the audio, so I don't have to send videos of myself to the editor? I have only the free version of zoom. Thanks.
posted by swheatie to Technology (5 answers total)

When recording using the free version of zoom, I've always gotten a file called audio_only.m4a that just had the audio, in addition to the combined file. So you'll get both, but could share just the audio only file.
posted by matildatakesovertheworld at 6:15 PM on April 13, 2021 [9 favorites]

I have a licensed account, not free, but these directions should work:

If you are doing local recording to your own computer, I think an audio-only file is included/downloaded automatically. If you adjust your settings in the app, you can set it to have different audio files for different speakers, if that's desirable.

If you want to do it with cloud recording*, go into Settings on the website (not the desktop app), pick the Recordings heading, and then find the checkbox for recording an audio-only file.

*Is cloud recording a thing for free accounts? Not sure.
posted by ktkt at 6:22 PM on April 13, 2021 [1 favorite]

The best solution looks to be covered already, but if you happen to end up with just a video file, you can use ffmpeg and other tools to extract an audio file from the video file.
posted by Candleman at 6:52 PM on April 13, 2021 [2 favorites]

This Zoom support page confirms what user:matildatakesovertheworld said.
posted by glonous keming at 8:11 PM on April 13, 2021

Response by poster: Thanks, all!
posted by swheatie at 7:12 AM on April 14, 2021