How recordings get into Feather

When a Zoom meeting that Feather created is set to record, the recording follows a fixed path from Zoom into Feather. Knowing the steps makes it much easier to tell where a recording is at any moment, and why one has not shown up.

The path, step by step

The meeting is set to record. This is decided by your Zoom Cloud Recording settings — the organization default, or a setting on the series or the event. The event page shows Will be recorded while the event is upcoming.
The host runs the meeting. Zoom records it to Zoom Cloud, exactly as it would for any meeting you start with cloud recording on. Feather is not involved during the meeting.
Zoom processes the recording. After the meeting ends, Zoom takes time to produce the files — usually minutes, sometimes a few hours for a long meeting. The event page shows Recording coming soon in the meantime.
Zoom tells Feather. Once the files exist, Zoom notifies Feather. If your organization has not ticked Keep our Zoom recordings in Feather, Feather stops here: the recording is not stored, and stays only in Zoom. Otherwise Feather works out which of your events the recording belongs to (see How Feather matches a recording to an event below).
Feather holds it, or archives it. In Manual mode every recording is held as Needs admin approval until you decide. In Automatic mode, a recording Feather is confident about is archived straight away; one it is unsure about is held. See Reviewing recordings.
Feather copies the files. Once approved, the files are copied from Zoom into Feather’s own storage. On the recordings page this shows as Queued, then Archiving with a progress bar, then Saved.
The recording is available. The event page shows Recording available with its length, the event gets a Recording tab where members can watch, and the class appears in your organization’s video library.

What one recording is made of

Zoom delivers a meeting as several files, and Feather shows all of them:

Video (MP4) — one per recording layout you have enabled in Zoom, for example Shared screen with speaker view or Gallery view.
Audio only (M4A).
Transcript (VTT) — only if Audio transcript is switched on in your Zoom recording settings.

Every file of one run carries the same start and end time, so Feather treats them as one recording rather than adding their lengths together.

Parts

If the host stops and restarts recording during a meeting — or ends the meeting and starts it again — Zoom produces a separate run for each. Feather keeps them together on the event and labels them Part 1 of 2, Part 2 of 2, and so on. A member watching the recording can switch between parts; a class recorded straight through never shows part numbers.

How Feather matches a recording to an event

A Zoom meeting link that Feather created stays valid until the meeting expires, and it can be started at any time, any number of times. Zoom does not tell Feather which event a recording was for — only which meeting link it came from. So Feather uses the recording’s start and end time to decide:

Matched. The recording started shortly before the event and ended around the time the event ended. Feather is confident this is the event’s recording. In Automatic mode it is archived; in Manual mode it is held for approval.
Close, but not certain. The times are near the event but not near enough to be sure — a host who opened the meeting very early, or an event whose time was changed after the meeting was created. The recording is always held for review, with the note “The times are close to this event, but not close enough to be sure.”
Does not line up. The recording is nowhere near the event the link was created for — typically the host reused the link for an unrelated call. It is held for review with the note “This does not line up with the event the meeting was created for.”

Two kinds of recording never enter Feather at all:

Recordings of meetings you created in Zoom yourself, rather than through a Feather event. Feather only handles meetings it created.
Recordings that could belong to more than one Feather organization — possible when one Zoom account is connected to several organizations and the same meeting link could match events in each. Rather than guess and risk showing one organization’s class to another, Feather does not store the recording. It remains in your Zoom account.

Where each state appears

On the event page and calendar	What it means
Will be recorded	The event is upcoming and its meeting is set to record.
Recording coming soon	The event has ended and a recording is expected, but has not arrived or has not finished archiving yet.
Recording available · 45m	There is something to watch. The length is the total across all parts.
Recording unavailable	Nothing to watch and nothing coming: the recording was discarded, archiving failed and was not re-run, or nothing arrived within two days of the event ending.

Events that were never set to record show nothing at all — most events are not recorded, and saying so on every one of them would bury the ones that matter.

What Feather keeps, and what stays in Zoom

A recording that has been Saved is a copy held by Feather. Deleting the recording in Zoom afterwards does not affect it. It stays until you remove it: Delete all recordings or withdrawing consent in the Zoom Cloud Recording settings removes every recording and transcript at once — members lose access immediately, and the files leave Feather’s storage within a day.
A recording that is Needs admin approval has not been copied yet. It is still only in your Zoom account, and it is subject to Zoom’s own retention rules until you approve it.
A Discarded recording is never downloaded. It stays in Zoom until Zoom removes it.