Salesforce call recording: where to keep the audio, and what to log

The best place for a Salesforce call recording is usually not Salesforce. Keep the audio in your phone system and put a link on the call Task, with the outcome, the duration, and a short summary. Attaching the audio itself fills your org’s file storage in weeks and makes access harder to control.

A sales manager asks for “the recordings in Salesforce” so they can coach from the opportunity page. That is a fair request. The question is what actually goes into Salesforce, and what stays in the system that made the recording. Get that split right once and nobody has to clean up storage or chase broken links later.

What Salesforce gives you for storage

Salesforce splits storage in two. According to Salesforce Help, as of October 2026:

Storage	What counts toward it	Allocation
File storage	Attachments, Files home, Salesforce CRM Content, Chatter files, the Documents tab	10 GB per org on Contact Manager, Group, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited Editions; 1 GB on Essentials and Starter
Data storage	Records such as Tasks, Events, Leads, Contacts, and Opportunities	10 GB per org plus an amount per user license

File storage is a flat amount per org on these editions, not per user. A 40-person team gets the same 10 GB as a 4-person team, and contracts, proposals, and logos already use some of it.

A worked example: how fast audio fills it

This is an example, not a benchmark. Assume:

• 20 reps, each with 90 minutes of conversations a day;
• recordings saved as compressed mono audio at 32 kbit/s, which is 240 KB a minute;
• 21 working days a month.

The maths:

1. 20 reps × 90 minutes = 1,800 minutes of audio a day.
2. 1,800 × 240 KB = 432,000 KB, about 432 MB a day.
3. 10 GB ÷ 432 MB ≈ 23 working days.

So the whole org’s file storage is gone in about 3 weeks, and in about 2 months at half that bitrate. Teams that record in stereo, with the rep and the prospect on separate channels for coaching, use about twice as much, so the storage lasts about half as long.

What to put on the Task instead

A call in Salesforce is a Task. The Task object already has call fields, so most of what a manager needs fits without any audio:

What you want to see	Field	Notes
Direction	CallType	Inbound, Internal, or Outbound
How long they talked	CallDurationInSeconds	A number, so reports can sum and average it
What happened	CallDisposition	Free text up to 255 characters; keep it to a fixed list
What was said	Description	Shown as Comments; a 3–5 line summary works better than a full transcript
Where the audio is	A custom URL field, such as Recording link	Opens the recording in the phone system

The CallType, CallDurationInSeconds, CallDisposition, and CallObject fields are available to every user in an org with Salesforce CRM Call Center. If your outcomes are still free text, start with a short disposition list before adding recordings. A recording nobody can find by outcome rarely gets played.

A summary in Description that a manager can read in 10 seconds looks like this:

Outcome: Meeting booked, Tue 14:00 their time
Pain: month-end close takes 9 days, wants 5
Objection: already reviewing another vendor in Q1
Next step: send security questionnaire before the meeting
Recording: see Recording link

Five labeled lines are easier to scan in a list view than a paragraph, and they still make sense if the recording is later deleted.

Link or attachment: a decision table

Situation	Attach the file	Link to the phone system
A handful of calls a month, kept for a deal record	Fine	Fine
A calling team recording every conversation	Fills file storage in weeks	Better
You need to delete recordings after a set period	You must delete files in Salesforce too	Delete once, in one place
Access should follow who can hear calls, not who can see the record	Hard: file access follows the record	Better: the phone system checks its own login
A manager wants to play the call on the opportunity	Works	Works, one click away

Two cautions on links. First, never use a public link that anyone with the URL can open. The link should land on a page that asks for a login. Second, keep the link stable. If the phone system changes its URLs, every old Task breaks.

Before you switch recording on

Recording is a legal decision before it is a storage decision. Some US states and many countries require every party’s consent. Read which states need all-party consent and check each location with your counsel.

Then:

1. Decide how long you keep recordings, and write it down.
2. Decide who may listen: reps to their own calls, managers to their team’s.
3. Add the Recording link field to the Task layout and to the activity report your managers use.
4. Log the outcome, the duration, and a summary on every call, so the recording is the evidence and not the only record.
5. Pick 3 calls a week per rep for coaching. A simple scorecard beats listening to everything.

For the full list of Task fields and logging options, see how to log calls in Salesforce.

How DialSavvy handles this

DialSavvy records calls and writes transcripts and AI call summaries today, so the audio stays in DialSavvy rather than in your Salesforce file storage. The Salesforce integration is in early access: click-to-call from a record, calls logged as Salesforce Tasks, and dialing from lists, reports, and campaigns. See the dialer for how recordings and summaries work.

Book a demo with your Salesforce admin: we’ll walk through what lands on the Task after each call.