Update: Zoom Accounts Restored

Updated on
Zoom logo above "Recent disruption to UMN Zoom Accounts"

Following the announcements on Wednesday, July 1 regarding permanent data loss in Zoom, our technical leadership escalated this issue to the highest engineering levels at Zoom. Through this collaboration, the vendor identified a specialized recovery pathway that is allowing us to restore significant amounts of Zoom data. 

While this is incredibly welcome news, we know it comes after many have already experienced significant stress and may have spent time rebuilding schedules. We sincerely apologize for the disruption caused by these events.

Recommendation action

To ensure that your account works as expected, follow instructions to Download and Access Your UMN Zoom Account.

What has been restored

The following assets have been restored to impacted Zoom accounts:

  • Meeting and webinar links (including Google Calendar links) are now working.
    • For users who created new Zoom links after receiving the an email from the Office of Information Technology on July 1, those  links will remain active. Our system restoration will not overwrite or change them. 
  • Zoom recordings stored in the Cloud. 
    • Almost all Zoom recordings have been restored. To view your meeting recordings, log in to umn.zoom.us and select Recordings & Transcripts.
  • Webinar and event licenses.
    • We were able to restore most Zoom Webinar licenses. Users can log in to your Zoom account at umn.zoom.edu to verify whether your license was restored. If your license was not restored, please request a new license.  
  • Personal meeting IDs.
  • Zoom Phone saved voicemail recordings.

What has not been restored

The following assets have not been restored to impacted Zoom accounts at this time: 

  • Zoom Conferencing
    • Whiteboards
    • AI Companion summaries
    • Scheduling privileges
    • Profile data (photo, pronouns, display names)
  • Zoom Phone
    • Voicemail greetings
    • SMS settings
    • Call history
    • Manually-created contacts
    • Engineers are working to restore a small number of voicemails to their appropriate account owner

Guidelines for Zoom links in meetings and Zoom Phone activation

If you have already taken steps to recreate meetings or activate your Zoom Phone, follow these guidelines to prevent duplicate configurations:

  • If you ALREADY recreated meetings: If you already sent out new links to your teams or students, we recommend keeping the new links to avoid confusion, or explicitly telling your attendees which link to use.
  • If you HAVE NOT recreated meetings: No action is required. Your original meetings and calendar integrations will be automatically restored. You do not need to recreate them.
  • Zoom Phone activation: If you have not yet activated your restored Zoom Phone via the [email protected] email, please do so. Your historical voicemails will be available to you once the account is fully active.

Cause and Action Plan

The Office of Information Technology has already taken immediate action to correct the automated process and ensure this error cannot happen again. 

We sincerely apologize for the stress, frustration, and difficulties this incident has caused our community. 

Additional updates

The Office of Information Technology is continuing to explore the potential restoration of Zoom data with the vendor. Check this news article for updates. 

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