Preface

The Zoom installer doesn’t link the .zoom files to the converter app anymore. Last week I wrote posts about how to convert the files manually. While that works fine, it’s not convenient to always use the command line for the conversion.

This guide explains how to restore the ability to convert .zoom files by just double-clicking them on Ubuntu/Linux. Here you can find the guides for macOS and Windows.

I’m assuming that you’ve installed the Zoom client using the standard way.

Step 1

Files windows with two ‘.zoom. files. The context menu of the first one is open and the mouse hovers over ‘Open With Other Application’.

Open the folder with your .zoom files in Files and right-click the first one. Click on the ‘Open With Other Application’ entry.

Step 2

‘Select Application’ window with an empty application list. Below the list are two buttons ‘View All Applications’ and ‘Find New Applications’

In the “Select Application” window click the “View All Applications” button to switch to the list of all applications.

Step 3

‘Select Application’ window with a list of all applications. The entry ‘Zoom’ is selected.

Find the “Zoom” entry in the list, select it by clicking on it and click on the “Select” button in the top right corner of the window.

Step 4

Zoom windows showing the progress of the conversion. The text reads ‘You have a recording that needs to be converted before viewing. You may convert your recording later by double clicking .zoom file located in the recording folder.’

Zoom is now converting the file(s). This may take a while. Just grab your favorite beverage and wait.

Step 5

Files window showing the converted files: ‘audio_only.m4a’, ‘audio_only_1.m4a’, ‘playback.m3u’, ‘zoom_0.mp4’, ‘zoom_1.mp4’

When it is done, the window will close. Now you can find the converted files in the folder the original .zoom files were in. If you want to convert the recordings in the future you just need to double-click the files.