Call recording formats and storage sizing

See also

Sources

1. 1
   In an Amazon Connect agent interaction recording, agent audio is in the right channel and customer audio, including any conferenced third parties, is in the left channel.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' second bullet · Checked 2026-10-02
2. 2
   Amazon Connect conversational analytics encrypts voice artifacts, including analysis files and redacted audio, with the recording KMS key.

   Create a Connect Customer instance · section 'Step 4: Data storage' second Note box · Checked 2026-10-02
3. 3
   Creating an Amazon Connect instance creates an S3 bucket by default, and one bucket and KMS key serve both recordings and exported reports unless separate buckets and keys are specified.

   Create a Connect Customer instance · section 'Step 4: Data storage' paragraphs 1-2 · Checked 2026-10-02
4. 4
   Amazon Connect call recordings are WAV files that are often named with the contact ID prefix, but AWS does not guarantee that the file name matches the contact ID and recommends searching by contact ID instead.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' Tip box · Checked 2026-10-02
5. 5
   Amazon Connect keeps recording the agent while the customer is on hold, but a participant's self-muted side conversation is not recorded.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'When is a conversation recorded?' hold and mute bullets · Checked 2026-10-02
6. 6
   Because Amazon Connect excludes Object Lock compliance mode, a legal hold on Connect recordings most likely has to use S3 legal holds or governance mode on the recording bucket, or a copy kept outside Connect; AWS does not document this path for Connect.inferred

   Create a Connect Customer instance · derived from 'Step 4: Data storage' Note, with S3 Object Lock 'Legal holds' section · Checked 2026-10-02
7. 7
   In an Amazon Connect automated (IVR) interaction recording, customer audio is in the right channel and system prompts are in the left channel.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' first bullet · Checked 2026-10-02
8. 8
   If an Amazon Connect recording is moved from one S3 bucket to another, for example when a retention period expires, Amazon Connect can no longer access it.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' Important box, last item · Checked 2026-10-02
9. 9
   Amazon Connect uploads recordings with both S3 PutObject and MultipartUpload, so S3 event notifications must cover all object-create events or both s3:ObjectCreated:Put and s3:ObjectCreated:CompleteMultipartUpload.

   When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'When are recordings available?' Tip box · Checked 2026-10-02
10. 10
    Amazon Connect does not support Amazon S3 Object Lock in compliance mode (the WORM model) for the objects it stores.

    Create a Connect Customer instance · section 'Step 4: Data storage' Note box · Checked 2026-10-02
11. 11
    Amazon Connect plays agent and customer recordings on two separate channels and offers no way to mix them to one channel for a one-ear headset, so reviewers need stereo output.

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Headset requirements for listening to recordings' · Checked 2026-10-02
12. 12
    An Amazon Connect agent-interaction recording is written to the S3 bucket shortly after the contact disconnects, but it appears in the contact record only after the contact leaves After Contact Work.

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'When are recordings available?' paragraph 1 and Important box · Checked 2026-10-02
13. 13
    The Amazon Connect Set recording and analytics behavior block can record agent and customer audio, agent only, or customer only, and the setting takes effect only after the agent joins the call.

    Enable contact recording · 'To set up recording of conversations' step 5 · Checked 2026-10-02
14. 14
    With Amazon Connect rule-based screen-recording redaction, both the unredacted and the redacted recording are stored in the customer's S3 bucket and both are billed at standard S3 rates.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Rule-based redaction FAQ > General specifications > 'Does rule-based redaction affect storage costs?' · Checked 2026-10-02
15. 15
    Amazon Connect stores redacted screen recordings in the same bucket under the parent of the configured prefix, at Analysis/ScreenRecordings/Redacted/, with a _screen_recording_redacted_ file-name suffix.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Rule-based redaction FAQ > Configuration > 'Where are redacted recordings stored?' · Checked 2026-10-02
16. 16
    Amazon Connect screen recording can capture up to 3 screens or monitors.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > 'How many agent monitors can be recorded?' · Checked 2026-10-02
17. 17
    Amazon Connect records agent screens at a fixed 5 frames per second, which is not configurable.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > frame rate question · Checked 2026-10-02
18. 18
    Amazon Connect saves agent screen recordings as MP4 files.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > General specifications > 'What is the file format of screen recordings?' · Checked 2026-10-02
19. 19
    Amazon Connect screen recording has no maximum recording duration and no service quota.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > service limit and maximum duration questions · Checked 2026-10-02
20. 20
    Amazon Connect screen recording uses the OpenH264 codec.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > 'What codec is used for screen recording?' · Checked 2026-10-02
21. 21
    Amazon Connect writes screen recordings to S3 under the configured prefix as year/month/day/contact-id_UTC-timestamp.mp4, and the console's default prefix is connect/instance-alias/ScreenRecordings.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > 'Where are screen recordings stored?' · Checked 2026-10-02
22. 22
    For Amazon Connect call and screen recording storage, bucket-level KMS encryption must use the same KMS key that is set in the instance data storage configuration; a different key is not supported.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > bucket-level encryption KMS key question · Checked 2026-10-02
23. 23
    AWS gives the average size of an Amazon Connect screen recording in S3 as 1.5 MB per minute, varying with factors such as video encoding.

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · Screen recording FAQ > Configuration > 'What is the average size of a screen recording file per minute in S3?' · Checked 2026-10-02
24. 24
    Amazon Connect encrypts all call recordings by default with Amazon S3 server-side encryption using KMS at the object level, with no bucket-level encryption, and AWS advises against disabling it.

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' encryption paragraphs · Checked 2026-10-02
25. 25
    Amazon Connect stores agent and contact audio on separate stereo audio channels in its call recordings.

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'Where are recordings and transcripts stored?' first sentence · Checked 2026-10-02
26. 26
    Amazon Connect produces at most two recordings per contact: one for the automated (IVR) interaction and one for the agent interaction.

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · section 'When is a conversation recorded?' second bullet · Checked 2026-10-02
27. 27
    Stereo channel conventions differ across platforms: Amazon Connect puts the customer on the left and the agent on the right, Genesys Cloud dual-channel trunk recordings put the external party on channel 0 and the internal party on channel 1, and Twilio conferences put the first recorded participant on the first channel and mix everyone else into the second.inferred

    When, what, and where for contact recordings in Connect Customer · synthesis of the channel-mapping sections in the three vendor sources · Checked 2026-10-02
28. 28
    G.711 (PCMU and PCMA) encodes audio as eight bits per sample at an 8000 Hz sampling rate, which is 64 kbit/s per channel.

    RTP Profile for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control · section 4.5.14 and Table 4 (PT 0 and 8) · Checked 2026-10-02
29. 29
    G.722 samples audio at 16000 Hz within 64 kbit/s, but its RTP clock rate is 8000 Hz because RFC 1890 assigned that value in error.

    RTP Profile for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control · section 4.5.2 · Checked 2026-10-02
30. 30
    G.729 codes speech at 8 kbit/s.

    RTP Profile for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control · section 4.5.6 · Checked 2026-10-02
31. 31
    A Genesys Cloud recording policy's 'Archive recordings after' setting sets how many days a recording stays in immediately available storage before it moves to long-term storage.

    Manage recordings · retention settings description, 'Archive recordings after' · Checked 2026-10-02
32. 32
    For Genesys Cloud BYOC Premises recordings to be transcribed, they must be dual channel and use audio/PCMU, audio/PCMA, audio/L16 or audio/Opus.

    Enable policy-based recording · section 'Configure trunk-side recording', transcription note · Checked 2026-10-02
33. 33
    Genesys Cloud lets users download individual policy-based voice and screen recordings from an interaction's details in .ogg_opus, .mp3, .wav or .webm format.

    Download a recording · article body, download format sentence · Checked 2026-10-02
34. 34
    In a Genesys Cloud dual-channel trunk recording, audio channel 0 holds the external participant and audio channel 1 holds the internal participant.

    Enable policy-based recording · section 'Configure trunk-side recording' step 11 · Checked 2026-10-02
35. 35
    Genesys Cloud exported recordings support S3 server-side encryption (SSE-S3 or SSE-KMS), and if Recording Export Encryption is also enabled the customer must decrypt the files after retrieval.

    Work with exported recordings in AWS S3 bucket · encryption section · Checked 2026-10-02
36. 36
    Genesys Cloud bulk export to an AWS S3 bucket writes audio as .opus files, screen recordings as .zip files and metadata as .json files.

    Work with exported recordings in AWS S3 bucket · file format section near top of article · Checked 2026-10-02
37. 37
    Genesys Cloud exports a given recording only once and skips any recording a later export matches that was already exported.

    Manage recordings · export section · Checked 2026-10-02
38. 38
    Genesys Cloud exported recordings use the S3 key layout organizationId/year=/month=/day=/hour=/conversation_id=, with the date and hour being the conversation start time in UTC.

    Work with exported recordings in AWS S3 bucket · folder structure section · Checked 2026-10-02
39. 39
    Genesys Cloud does not support PGP object-level encryption of exported recordings in its FedRAMP region; only server-side encryption is supported there.

    Work with exported recordings in AWS S3 bucket · encryption section, regional limitation note · Checked 2026-10-02
40. 40
    A Genesys Cloud organization can protect at most 1000 conversations from recording deletion.

    Protect recordings from deletion · section 'Protect recordings from deletion', limit statement · Checked 2026-10-02
41. 41
    Genesys Cloud recording protection prevents manual deletion and overrides policy deletion dates for every recording in the conversation, either indefinitely or until the protection is removed.

    Protect recordings from deletion · section 'Protect recordings from deletion' · Checked 2026-10-02
42. 42
    The container a Genesys Cloud screen recording arrives in appears to depend on how it is retrieved: WebM for an individual download, .zip for bulk export to S3; whether the zip wraps WebM is not documented in the sources read.inferred

    Work with exported recordings in AWS S3 bucket · file format section, read with genesys-faq-screen-recording-format FAQ answer · Checked 2026-10-02
43. 43
    Genesys Cloud screen recordings download in WebM format.

    What is the format of downloaded screen recordings? · FAQ answer, first sentence · Checked 2026-10-02
44. 44
    The Genesys Cloud trunk recording Dual Channel option is available only when the recording audio format is PCMU, PCMA, L16 or Opus.

    Enable policy-based recording · section 'Configure trunk-side recording' step 11 · Checked 2026-10-02
45. 45
    The Genesys Cloud trunk recording Audio Format setting offers codecs including PCMU, PCMA, L16, Opus, G726-32, GSM and Truespeech.

    Enable policy-based recording · section 'Configure trunk-side recording' step 10 · Checked 2026-10-02
46. 46
    Opus supports bitrates from 6 kbit/s to 510 kbit/s, changeable dynamically, and its RTP timestamp always uses a 48000 Hz clock.

    RFC 7587: RTP Payload Format for the Opus Speech and Audio Codec · sections 3.1 and 4.1 · Checked 2026-10-02
47. 47
    RFC 7587 recommends 8-12 kbit/s for narrowband speech, 16-20 kbit/s for wideband speech and 28-40 kbit/s for fullband speech with Opus at 20 ms frames.

    RFC 7587: RTP Payload Format for the Opus Speech and Audio Codec · section 3.1.1 · Checked 2026-10-02
48. 48
    In Amazon S3 Object Lock compliance mode, no user, not even the account root user, can overwrite or delete a protected object version or shorten its retention period before it expires.

    Locking objects with Object Lock · section 'Retention modes' compliance mode paragraph · Checked 2026-10-02
49. 49
    An Amazon S3 Object Lock legal hold prevents an object version from being overwritten or deleted, has no expiration date, stays until explicitly removed, and is independent of any retention period.

    Locking objects with Object Lock · section 'Legal holds' · Checked 2026-10-02
50. 50
    Amazon S3 Object Lock works only in buckets with S3 Versioning enabled and protects only the specified object version.

    Locking objects with Object Lock · introductory section, paragraph after 'Legal hold' bullet · Checked 2026-10-02
51. 51
    At AWS's stated average of 1.5 MB per minute, an hour of Amazon Connect screen recording is roughly 90 MB, and this doubles when rule-based redaction keeps both the redacted and unredacted copies.inferred

    Frequently asked questions about Connect Customer screen recording capabilities · derived from Configuration > average size question and Rule-based redaction storage cost question · Checked 2026-10-02
52. 52
    An hour of uncompressed G.711 audio is about 28.8 MB per channel (64 kbit/s x 3600 s / 8), so a two-channel G.711 recording is about 57.6 MB per hour before container overhead.inferred

    RTP Profile for Audio and Video Conferences with Minimal Control · derived from section 4.5.14 sampling parameters · Checked 2026-10-02
53. 53
    At the RFC 7587 wideband-speech rate of 16-20 kbit/s, an Opus recording needs roughly one third to one quarter of the storage of 64 kbit/s G.711 per channel, which is consistent with Genesys exporting .opus by default.inferred

    RFC 7587: RTP Payload Format for the Opus Speech and Audio Codec · derived from section 3.1.1 with RFC 3551 section 4.5.14 · Checked 2026-10-02
54. 54
    At Twilio's documented 128 kbps WAV rate, an hour of recording is about 57.6 MB, and at 32 kbps MP3 it is about 14.4 MB.inferred

    Recordings resource · derived from media file bitrate statements · Checked 2026-10-02
55. 55
    Twilio documents recording media as 128 kbps for WAV and 32 kbps for MP3.

    Recordings resource · media file section, format bitrate statements · Checked 2026-10-02
56. 56
    In a Twilio conference recording, the first channel holds the first participant who joined with recording enabled and the second channel holds all other audio mixed together.

    Recordings resource · dual-channel section, conference paragraph · Checked 2026-10-02
57. 57
    Twilio stores call and conference recordings in dual-channel format by default, with each party of a two-party call on its own channel.

    Recordings resource · dual-channel section · Checked 2026-10-02
58. 58
    Twilio Call Recording Encryption encrypts recordings with a customer public key, and the recording response carries the public key SID, the encrypted content-encryption key and the initialization vector.

    Recordings resource · encryption_details property description · Checked 2026-10-02
59. 59
    Twilio returns a recording as WAV (audio/x-wav) when the media URI has no extension or ends in .wav, and as MP3 (audio/mpeg) when it ends in .mp3.

    Recordings resource · media file / fetch recording media section · Checked 2026-10-02

Documents

Cite this page

WarmTransfer. (2026, October 2). Call recording formats and storage sizing. WarmTransfer. https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/call-recording-formats-storage

@misc{warmtransfer-call-recording-formats-storage,
  title  = {Call recording formats and storage sizing},
  author = {{WarmTransfer}},
  year   = {2026},
  url    = {https://warmtransfer.net/knowledge/call-recording-formats-storage},
  note   = {Verified 2026-10-02}
}