# Recording

With stream recordings enabled in Administration -> Server -> Settings, you can start a server-side recording of your H.264 or H.265 streams by clicking the REC button when the stream is live:

<figure><img src="https://content.gitbook.com/content/vlXt8MPa8o1RxsSPQDpX/blobs/a27K8mW4pyn5RO5jMpoB/rec-start.jpg" alt=""><figcaption><p>Just click to record!</p></figcaption></figure>

<figure><img src="https://content.gitbook.com/content/vlXt8MPa8o1RxsSPQDpX/blobs/Re0ApAPpScqO96crAlU4/rec-run.jpg" alt=""><figcaption><p>The recording indicator shows here as well as the home screen.</p></figcaption></figure>

You are free to leave the page while the recording is active. When you stop the recording, it will create a thumbnail on the server and appear in the list after a few seconds. You can then playback recordings in the browser as you please, or download them for use elsewhere. The recordings are muxed into MP4 but not re-encoded, so the exact video data received by the server is what you will see in your recording. A minimum of 8GB disk space is required to begin a recording. If you don't see a REC button, check that you have enabled recordings in the Admin section, and of course that your stream is live!

![Click any recording to start playing immediately.](https://content.gitbook.com/content/vlXt8MPa8o1RxsSPQDpX/blobs/cNoemWVSreC6OodnGYDf/rec-playback.jpg)

Note: While there is no maximum recording length enforced, longer recordings will have potentially huge file sizes and can use a very high amount of bandwidth for playback. **Google Chrome** works best for playing back and seeking through very long recordings.

## Sharing

Click the eyeball button next to a recording to make it available to clients who are logged into this channel - you can also download or delete the recording. The public link 🔗 for a recording acts as a direct download link when the recording is shared.

<figure><img src="https://content.gitbook.com/content/vlXt8MPa8o1RxsSPQDpX/blobs/p4xsjuHwHatC2Obx9C6x/rec-share.jpg" alt="" width="375"><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

## Automatic Recording

Automatic recording (which is set in the [Channel](https://docs.streamwell.net/streamwell-v1.8.0/using-streamwell/channels) configuration) essentially takes care of pressing the REC button for you the moment the stream starts. Make sure you've got lots of free disk space! You can stop a recording which was started automatically - i.e. it does not also have to stop automatically. It is not recommended to leave automatic recording on for channels with super long live streams (more than 8 hours starts to get dicey for playback in the web browser).