Google Meet transcription

How to transcribe a Google Meet call

Google Meet can save a transcript straight to a Google Doc — if your Workspace edition includes the feature and someone turns it on during the call. Here is how that works, what it leaves you to do by hand, and how to get a transcript on any account, personal ones included.

Start for free, no credit card required.

Design reviewLive
PR
Priya00:07

We're dropping the second onboarding step — it's where most people fall out.

TO
Tom00:15

Then I'll need the new flow in Figma before Thursday's build.

PR
Priya00:22

You'll have it Wednesday morning.

Decisions
  • Second onboarding step removed
  • Updated flow in Figma by Wednesday

Two ways to get a Google Meet transcript

One lives inside Workspace and depends on your edition. The other works the same way whichever Google account you are signed in with.

Built into Meet

Transcript saved to Google Docs

On eligible Google Workspace editions, someone in the call starts a transcript and Meet writes it to a Doc in the organizer's Drive when the meeting ends. Not available on free personal accounts.

With Laxis

Live transcript plus a written summary

Laxis transcribes as people speak, attributes each line to a speaker, and produces a summary with action items — on any Google account, without depending on a Workspace tier.

The built-in option

How Google Meet's own transcripts work

Meet's transcript is a Workspace feature, so whether you have it depends on your organization's edition and on what your admin has enabled. Live captions are a separate thing — they appear on screen during the call but are not saved unless a transcript is running.

1

Check that your edition includes it

Transcripts ship with selected Google Workspace business, enterprise, and education editions. Personal Gmail accounts do not have the feature.

2

Start the transcript in the meeting

Open the activities panel during the call and start transcription. An admin can also set it to begin automatically for meetings in your organization.

3

Find the Doc afterwards

When the call ends, Meet saves the transcript as a Google Doc in the organizer's Drive, under the Meet Recordings folder, and attaches it to the calendar event.

The Laxis route

Transcribe Meet calls whatever your Workspace edition

Laxis captures the conversation itself rather than relying on Meet's feature set, which means the transcript does not depend on your Google plan. Add the Chrome extension for Meet, or run the desktop app so nothing joins the call at all.

1

Add the extension or run the desktop app

The Chrome extension works inside Meet; the desktop app records without appearing as a participant. Connecting your calendar lets Laxis handle scheduled calls on its own.

2

See the transcript as the call runs

Speaker-attributed text builds live in over 100 languages, so there is nothing to retrieve from Drive afterwards.

3

Share the summary immediately

Decisions and next steps are written up by the time you leave the call, ready to send to whoever was not there.

Meet's transcript vs. Laxis

The built-in transcript is genuinely useful if you have it. These are the places where teams tend to hit its edges.

Google Meet transcriptLaxis
Account requirementSelected Google Workspace editions onlyAny Google account, personal included
Has to be startedYes, during the call, unless an admin automates itAutomatic for calls on your connected calendar
Summary and action itemsNot included — the Doc is the transcriptGenerated with the transcript
Where it livesA Doc in the organizer's DriveOne searchable workspace across every meeting
Other platformsGoogle Meet onlyZoom, Teams, Webex, and in-person too
Follow-upCopy and paste into your CRMSyncs to HubSpot and Salesforce

What a Meet transcript is missing

Getting the words down is the easy half. These are the parts that save the hour after the call.

Who said what

Speaker attribution on every line, so commitments can be traced back to the person who made them.

Structured summaries

Templates per meeting type mean a customer call and a standup do not come back in the same shape.

Action items, extracted

Next steps arrive as a list rather than something you reread the Doc to find.

Ask questions of past calls

Query months of meetings at once instead of opening Docs one at a time.

Content reuse

Turn a conversation into a follow-up email or a recap draft without rewriting it from scratch.

One place for every platform

Meet calls sit alongside Zoom, Teams, and in-person conversations in the same searchable history.

Google Meet transcription questions

Not by default. On eligible Google Workspace editions a participant starts the transcript during the call, and an administrator can configure it to begin automatically for the organization. Free personal accounts do not have the feature at all.

Meet writes it to a Google Doc in the meeting organizer's Drive, filed under the Meet Recordings folder, and links it to the calendar event for the meeting.

Not through Meet itself — transcripts are a paid Workspace feature. Laxis transcribes the call independently of Meet's own features, so it works on a personal Gmail account as well as a Workspace one.

Captions appear live on screen and disappear when the call ends. A transcript is saved as a document you can reread afterwards. Turning captions on does not produce a saved transcript.

Laxis transcribes in over 100 languages. Meet's own transcription supports a smaller set that varies by edition, so check what your account offers before a multilingual call.

Only if you want it to. The Chrome extension and the desktop app both capture without adding a participant to the call; a meeting assistant that joins visibly is an option, not a requirement.

It is gated by Workspace edition, so free and lower-tier accounts do not have it at all. Someone has to start it during the call unless an admin has automated that, and a transcript nobody started is gone once the meeting ends. What you get is a Doc of continuous text - no summary, no decisions pulled out, no action items - and it covers Google Meet only, so searching across many meetings means opening many Docs.

Transcribe your next Google Meet call.

A live transcript, a summary, and the follow-ups — without waiting on a Workspace upgrade.

Start for free, no credit card required.