How to remove thumbnail of speaker when recording?

[abarcomb]

How can I remove the speaker thumbnail when recording, so that only the shared screen is recorded, and no thumbnail/speaker is shown?

In Settings > Recording, I have disabled "Record active speaker with shared screen", "Record gallery view with shared screen" and "Record active speaker, gallery view and shared screen separately". I have also disabled "Display participants' names in the recording" and "Record thumbnails when sharing".

Finally, in the meeting itself, under Settings > Recording, I have disabled "Display participants' names in the recording".

Despite all this, I'm still getting a small black box for the active speaker in the top right which shows up in the recording, when I only want to see the slide presentation. Previously, I was able to get rid of this box by changing just the meeting setting to remove "Display participants' names in the recording" but now I cannot find any way to get rid of it.

I restarted the desktop version of the application after changing the configuration, but this did not help.

[jlkching28]

I am having this SAME problem. I've contacted support and they gave me a fix but it's back & I can't stop it from sharing. Any idea how to get rid of this??

[testing2025]

This problem is still here. I CANNOT record a video with Zoom without the thumbnail in the top corner, EVEN THOUGH I have disabled "record thumbnails when sharing".

[Ray_Harwood]

Sorry for the delayed response, @abarcomb and @jlkching28. Thanks for reviving the thread, @testing2025.

I think I’m hearing two different issues: one is related to content of the recording, the other is related to what the attendees see “live.” There’s a third related issue: what is seen on any live-stream feeds.  I'll cover each of these below.

The Recording

Be aware that there are two separate recording paths: one to the Zoom Cloud, one to your local computer. There is a separate set of recording settings for each of them.

The Cloud recording is controlled from your Zoom Web Portal at https://zoom.us/profile/setting?tab=recording in the Cloud Recording section. Look specifically for this highlighted setting, which will create a separate MP4 with a clean share-only view. 

Just above that are two other options which, if unchecked, should remove any overlay of the screen share by a speaker. 

The Local Computer recording is controlled from the Zoom Workplace app’s Settings > Recording tab.   Here, you have two options:

• No speaker or gallery with screen sharing:
  
• Put the speaker video to the side of the shared screen:
  
  
  

Enabling Record video during screen sharing and unchecking Show video and screen share side-by-side is what gives you the camera overlaying the screen share in the upper right corner.  If you are getting this layout with any other setup, I don't know what to say other than "something isn't right."

 The “Live” View

 In Zoom Meetings, each attendee has control over their own display configuration; the Host can affect that to some extent, but ultimately the Attendee has control. You can advise your attendees to change the settings in the upper right View menu, with the side-by-side option being most often used to make the full presentation unobscured. 

In Webinars, the Host has full control over the attendees’ view – though panelists (everyone “on stage,” so to speak) still have control of their own view. As the Host, go to the Panelists window down to the … Menu and either:

• Set a side-by-side mode to show speaker or gallery
• Set Standard mode and have all presenters turn off their video; this will create a full-screen view of the share only.

The Live-Stream View

Unfortunately there are no controls for the live-stream view when screen sharing. You get the standard “active speaker” camera in the upper right hand corner when feeding directly from Zoom. If It want to use a tool like OBS, vMix, eCam, or MimoLive, you can compose whatever you want and stream out of that tool, but the straight Zoom stream “is what it is.”