How to record on Google Hangouts

While you are having an audio or video conversation within Google Hangouts, you may need to record your call in order to view it later. Such a need may appear if you have scheduled an important video-chat with a customer or business partner, for instance, and want to have a chance to review the conference later in order to look through everything which has been discussed and agreed upon. Another case: you haven’t seen your relatives or friends for a long time, and want to record the Hangouts web-meeting video to memorize the pleasant moments years after.

Regarding the juridical aspect of the recording process in Hangouts, the laws which concern this particular procedure vary from state to state. In some of the USA regions and states, all participants of the chat, including the host and the interlocutors, must be strictly aware of it before the recording is started. In the other USA areas only the host should be aware about the recording. To completely maintain the ethical aspect of the deal, make sure that all Hangouts conversation participants are informed about the routine. Moreover, you need to be confident that all chat members are agreed with the fact that their talk will be recorded.

Now let’s start over with the main phase and discuss what tools can assist you in recording of Google Hangouts talk.

Recording a Hangouts conference with default means

If you have called an ordinary Hangouts contact, don’t be surprised — there are no integrated methods of recording your talk available within Google Hangouts by default.

One of the solutions to overcome this obstacle is to refer to the corporate Hangouts Meet service. However, the minimum price of the Basic package with a small range of available features (which includes registering a separate domain for your corporate mail, cloud storage and web-server) doesn’t let you record a conversation as well. The primary condition before you use Hangouts Meet is to get the G Suite Enterprise or the G Suite Enterprise for Education edition. If you want to have such an ability in Hangouts Meet, pay attention to these particular branches of the app, which serve specifically for medium and large-sized enterprise purposes.

You can find more info about using Hangouts Meet on your computer (PC or Mac) in “What is Hangouts Meet and how does it work” manual guide.

How to record a Hangouts conference call via Google Hangouts on Air (YouTube Live)?

Google Hangouts on Air is a proficient streaming platform integrated within the YouTube Live service. Everyone can stream from any location, and the content varies, too.

The recording process of an ordinary conversation works in the following way: you create a new broadcast session, but you set its type to “Private” so that no one except you and the person you are sharing the link for the video/audio file with can get access to the generated recording. The type of the broadcast session can be selected in the “Info and Settings” window:

• Go to the Creator Studio and log in to your YouTube account.
• If you haven’t used the service before, complete the registration and wait 24 hours until your Hangouts on Air account becomes available.
• After your registration data is checked and confirmed, click “Events” within the “Live Streaming” menu.

  

• Then schedule a new event by clicking the corresponding button.

  

• In the initial settings window, specify the title of the stream, which will be represented in the header of the video being published on YouTube afterwards; starting and ending time; description; tags to ease the search of the content for YouTube visitors; the type of translation. If you want to make the recording of conversation available only for private purposes, set Private in the list of options suggested.

  

• After all of the preliminary options are specified, click the “Go live now” button

  

• Approve your intention to have a Google Hangouts conference live in the confirmation box.

  

• Now you need to send an invite to your collocutor to join the conversation. After the invite is sent, the contact will be able to join Hangouts conference from computer, laptop, Android phone or tablet, iPhone or iPad. In order to send an invite, click the “Invite People” button and type in the email or name of the person suggested to join. If you decide to specify the name of the contact, its info should be presented in the Google address book beforehand. Once again, if you selected the Private type of broadcast, none will be able to view the video recording except you and the person you invite.

  

• Afterwards, when the needed person has joined the broadcast session, start the Hangouts on Air session by clicking the “Start broadcast” button below.

  

• Once more, approve your decision in the pop-up confirmation box.

  

• Now the recording has started, which is indicated by the “Live” status in the primary broadcasting window. When the conversation is over, click the “Stop broadcast” button at the bottom to cease the recording process.

  

• To view the recorded video, go to the “Video manager” in the menu. Here you can export the video to an external file, extract the audio part from the source or encode it by a different encoder.

  

This method can seem a bit awkward, but using this solution, you don’t need to install any third-party plugins, extensions or tools. With a tiny bit of practice and user experience, you get an HD-quality video or audio recording of your talk with a friend, a teammate or a customer instantly.

Note: if you want to know more about Google Hangouts on Air service, take a closer look at the “How to use Google Hangouts on Air” FAQ manual.

How to record a Google Hangouts talk via Snagit?

Snagit is an ultra-powerful, convenient and flexible utility that lets you not only to make screenshots from the computer screen in a fluent way, but is also able to generate video recordings or audio of any video conference, whether it is a complaint call to tech support, a phone interview, or a call between friends. If the previous method doesn’t suit you in some conditions, Snagit will solve the issue in a matter of time.

Snagit is shared on the shareware license. However, you can easily download the trial build for free and use it for 15 days in an unrestricted way. By the way, there are discrete installers for Windows or macOS operating systems, so disregarding of the environment you use, you will certainly find a compatible setup file for your actual platform.

Here is a step-by-step manual guide on how to record a Hangouts conversation via Snagit package:

• Go to official developer’s portal and download the trial version of the tool by clicking the corresponding button on the web-page.

  

• Choose the type of operating system you use and select the required version based on your system requirements.

  

• Download has started. Wait a couple of seconds until the setup file is completely transferred to your hard disk. When it’s over, proceed with the setup routine in the same way as you do with any installator — double-click on the EXE-file and proceed further until the tool is successfully installed (it may take a while, so be patient).
• Now we are ready to go with the most important part — recording. Just run Snagit from the Start menu.

  

• When the product is launched for the first time, you are offered to sign up to begin your trial usage. Agree on that and click the “Sign in to start trial” button.

  

• If you don’t own the license and launch Shagit for the first time, click the “Create a new account” button below to register the free trial copy.

  

• On the next step, you are asked for a login and a password for your Snagit account. Type in the valid email, either primary or secondary, and think over reliable and secure password, which you could use for using the app. Be imaginative, or use any of password generators in the web.

  

Note: if you don’t want to create a new account, login via Google using the “Sign up with Google” button below.

• The further step is related to filling in some gaps in the questionnaire. This information is strictly statistical and is gathered only to get feedback from the customers, so you may provide answers and click the “Submit” button to proceed.

  

• After a while, the data is transferred to the server and processed. In a second, the notification about the successful logging in should appear. Now you can close the browser tab and toggle to the Snagit application form.

  

• Now launch the Snagit utility from the taskbar and check out the settings available within the setup manager. Move the cursor to the taskbar, find the Snagit icon and make a single click on it.

  

• In the primary Snagit window, go to the “Video” section and configure the following preliminary setup:
  • In the “Selection” field, choose the area which you want to record: region or window. If you select region, you will be requested to manually specify the area of the screen, which will be covered for the recording. In case of the latter option, only the selected windowed zone will be recorded, i.e. primary Hangouts window.
  • The “Share” option should be defined as “None” so that the recorded file is not shared to third-party people via email, FTP or cloud.
  • “Record System Audio” should be toggled to the “On” status. Otherwise, the sound in your resulted video file will be disabled.
  • Leave the rest of the options default.

    

  • When the configuration is completed, click the large red “Capture” button on the Video tab or press the Print Screen key on the keyboard, specify the screen zone for the recording (depending on the value of the “Selection” option described before), and the recording procedure of Hangouts talk is started.

    

  • When the conversation is over, click the “Stop” button (a square) to cease the recording.

    

  • Preview the file, play it or edit it within the Snagit Editor tool. If you are done with this, save the resulted file to the selected folder by clicking “File” – “Save” in the Snagit Editor.

    

Note: By default, all video files within Snagit are recorded in the MP4 format.

If you have understood how to record on Google Hangouts, but it is still unclear how to manage a Hangouts audio talk or video conference, refer to the “How to use Hangouts on MacOS” FAQ guide. The principle for the Windows system is absolutely the same.

If you want to use Hangouts more, you will find a mass of smart enhancements and handy plugins that serve to ease your everyday life and make your communication with people more pleasant. Google has made everything possible to implement their best ideas into the real lifetime conditions, indeed.