Record remote sessions

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Session recording keeps a video of what a technician saw and did on an endpoint’s screen, so you can review a session later or hand it to an auditor. Recording is off until a profile turns it on. This page shows how to turn it on, how to play a recording back, and where recordings are kept.

What is recorded

A recording is the endpoint’s screen as it was sent to the technician, from the moment video starts until the session ends. It is captured by your Outpost as the video passes through, so the endpoint uploads nothing extra.

A recording holds video only. It does not hold clipboard or file content, which your Outpost cannot read. Transfers appear in the audit log instead. See Clipboard and file transfer.
When the signed-in user at the endpoint changes during a session, each user’s part is a separate history row with its own recording.
When a session pauses for technician inactivity, the recording stops and another part starts when the session resumes, unless remote_access.recording_pauses_on_idle is off.

Before you begin

Recording is included in Enterprise and MSP. On Home Lab and Essentials, sessions are not recorded, remote_access.recording_required is hidden in the profile editor, and a profile that requires recording cannot be applied. A profile that required recording before a change of plan keeps working, and the viewer warns that the session is not being recorded. See Plan feature reference.
Playing a recording back needs the remote:view_recordings permission. Changing whether sessions are recorded needs profile:manage.
Recordings go to your default storage destination. Without one, they stay on your Outpost’s own disk. See Storage destinations.

Choose which sessions are recorded

remote_access.recording_required decides whether sessions on an endpoint are recorded. It is off by default on every plan, so no session is recorded until a profile turns it on. When profiles disagree, any profile that requires recording wins.

To record sessions on some endpoints:

Go to Profiles > All profiles, and open a profile assigned to those endpoints. To record every session, use a profile assigned to all of them. See Create and assign a profile.
On the Settings tab, in Search settings, enter remote_access.recording_required.
Select Set in this profile, turn the value on, and select Save.

No compliance framework baseline requires recording, so assigning a framework does not turn it on. Turn it on where your own policy or your auditor asks for recorded sessions. See Compliance framework baselines.

To record the idle part of a paused session too, turn remote_access.recording_pauses_on_idle off in the same way. It is on by default, so an hour of a paused screen is not stored.

Play back a recording

Open the endpoint, and select Remote > History.
In the Recording column of the session, select View. A dash means that session part has no recording.

The recording opens in its own window, titled Session recording, with your browser’s own video controls.

When a paused session produced more than one part, View opens the first part. Seeking backwards past what has already downloaded starts the download again.

If the window says This recording could not be played., either the recording holds no video, for example a session that never showed a picture, or your role lacks remote:view_recordings.

Where recordings are kept

Each recording is encrypted with AES-256-GCM under a key of its own, and that key is in turn encrypted with your organization’s key. Your Outpost writes the recording to its own disk while the session runs, then moves it to your default storage destination when the session ends. With no default destination, the recording stays on your Outpost’s disk. On the MSP plan, each client’s recordings go to that client’s default destination, or to the practice’s fallback destination when the client has none.

If the move fails, for example because the destination is full or its quota would be exceeded, the recording stays on your Outpost’s disk and still plays back. Recordings in Outpost Cloud Storage count toward your storage usage.

How long recordings are kept

Each recording is kept for 30 days after its session ends, then deleted. Your Outpost checks for expired recordings every hour.

If your plan changes and no longer includes recording, recordings you already have stay playable until they expire.

Verify

Start a short session on an endpoint in the profile’s scope, then select End.
Open Remote > History. The session’s row shows View in the Recording column.
Select View, and check that the recording plays.

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