Transcribe Zoom meeting free, Teams recordings too
This tool transcribes a recorded Zoom meeting into text, free, up to 60 minutes per file.
Last updated: October 2026
Upload the Zoom, Teams or Google Meet recording and get an accurate transcript back: searchable notes, action items and a written record of what was said. No account, 10 recordings a day.
Related: TurboScribe no ads, 10 recordings a day: the free alternative.
No account. 10 recordings a day. Files up to 60 minutes here, and it resets at midnight.
Plain transcript and subtitles right here. Bleeping, translation and burned-in subtitles live in the full tool.
From recording to written record
Meeting recordings are hard to search and painful to re-watch. A transcript gives you a written record you can skim, search and quote: decisions, owners and deadlines all in text. Pair it with our meeting minutes from audio page for turning that transcript into clean minutes.
- Searchable record of every decision
- Skim in two minutes instead of re-watching an hour
- Copy exact quotes for follow-up emails
- Share notes with people who missed the call
How to transcribe your meeting recording
Zoom, Teams and Meet all let you save a local recording (usually MP4 audio+video, or M4A audio). Upload whichever you have; ScribeGrab only needs the audio and will pull it from a video file automatically.
- In Zoom/Teams/Meet, record the meeting and save the recording to your computer.
- Open ScribeGrab and drop the MP4 or M4A file in.
- Let it transcribe (up to 60 minutes / 1.5 GB per file).
- Download the transcript as TXT.
Recording it, naming it, and doing it after the call
How to transcribe Zoom meeting recordings? Zoom only has to have saved the recording. Record first with Zoom's own button, then upload the local file here once the call is over: record and transcribe, in that order. The audio-only M4A works as well as the MP4. Without a recording there is nothing to transcribe, because ScribeGrab works from a saved file, not a live call.
Zoom's own transcription is a separate, paid feature
Live transcription is a different job. Zoom's own Live Transcript toggle and AI Companion can transcribe meeting audio while it happens or transcribe meeting notes, but AI Companion sits behind a paid plan. If Zoom didn't transcribe your meeting, the most common reason is that AI Companion wasn't turned on for that call. This page is the free alternative for afterwards: it works from the finished recording, whichever setting was on.
Free either way, and who's allowed to record it
Uploading a Zoom recording here is always free, with no account needed. The AI is what does the listening, not a separate mode: you AI transcribe the meeting simply by uploading it. Unlike most meeting AI assistants, it needs no calendar access and no bot in the call.
Can you transcribe a Zoom meeting if you are not the host? Only the host (or someone they give permission) can hit Record, but once that file exists, anyone who has it can upload and transcribe it here. Any recording works, no matter which tool made it, and to transcribe notes from it you read the transcript afterwards. Microsoft's own Transcribe button in Word for the web needs a Microsoft 365 sign-in; this page needs no account.
Private by default
Meetings are sensitive, so your file is deleted the moment transcription finishes and results are wiped within 45 minutes (24 hours with any pass, free or paid). Nothing is shared or used to train anything. Details on the privacy page.
Where Zoom, Teams and Meet actually put the recording
ScribeGrab works on a file, and every meeting platform saves one. The only real question is where it went, and each of the big three hides it somewhere different.
- Zoom, local recording, saved on the machine of whoever hit record, by default under
Documents/Zoom/in a folder named after the meeting date and title. The file you want isaudio_only.m4aif it's there (smallest and perfectly adequate), otherwisezoom_0.mp4. - Zoom, cloud recording, under Recordings in your Zoom web account. Each recording offers a separate audio-only download; take that one rather than the video.
- Microsoft Teams, recordings land in OneDrive (a one-to-one call) or in the channel's SharePoint Recordings folder (a channel meeting). Both let you download the MP4 directly.
- Google Meet, saved to the organiser's Google Drive in a Meet Recordings folder, usually within a few minutes of the call ending. Download, don't share-link, since ScribeGrab needs the file itself.
Two practical notes. An audio-only download is always the better choice when the platform offers one: it's a fraction of the size, uploads far quicker and transcribes identically, because the video track is discarded anyway. And if the platform gives you a transcript of its own, it's usually worth transcribing again regardless: built-in meeting transcripts are tuned for speed over accuracy and tend to fall apart exactly where the meeting got interesting.
Speaker labels are what turn a call into a record
A one-hour meeting transcribed as a single block of text is technically complete and practically useless. You can't tell who committed to what, and you can't quote anybody. ScribeGrab separates the voices automatically and labels them Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on, up to eight distinct speakers, with nothing to switch on.
That changes what you can do with the result. You can search the transcript for one person's contributions, see at a glance who dominated the hour, and lift a decision with the name attached. The first thing worth doing is a find-and-replace: swap Speaker 1 for the actual name once and the whole document becomes readable. Work out who is who from the first thirty seconds, where people almost always introduce themselves or are greeted by name.
Read more
Where it's fair to expect trouble: labels are AI-estimated from voice characteristics, not from the platform's participant list, so two speakers with similar voices on similar microphones can occasionally be merged, and crosstalk (two people talking over each other) tends to get assigned to whoever is louder. If a recording has only one voice throughout, no labels are added, which is correct rather than a failure. And a call with more than eight distinct voices falls back to plain unlabelled text, so for a large all-hands expect a transcript rather than a cast list. The click-to-play transcript on the results page is the fix for all of these: click any line and it plays that moment of the audio, so verifying a label or a quote takes a second instead of a scrub through an hour.
Also snapped a photo of the whiteboard during the call? ScanReviver's whiteboard photo to PDF turns it into a clean, straight PDF that keeps your marker colours, so you can attach it alongside the transcript.
By Sam Ridder, I build and run ScribeGrab on my own hardware, on my own. Who I am.
Teams can write its own transcript when the organizer switches transcription on before the meeting. If nobody did, or you want a Teams transcript as a plain file you control, download the recording from OneDrive or SharePoint and upload it here: the Teams transcript is then built from the audio of the recording, with speaker labels.
Sources
- Start, stop, and find meeting recordings in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Support: Teams recordings are stored in OneDrive or SharePoint
- Record a video meeting - Google Meet Help: Google Meet recordings are saved to the organizer Google Drive
Frequently asked
Does it work with Zoom, Teams and Google Meet?
Yes. It's Zoom transcription that also takes Teams and Google Meet recordings: save the local recording from any of them and upload it, audio-only or video. One tool handles all three, so you don't need a separate one per platform.
Is Zoom transcription free here?
Yes. Zoom free transcription here means no account, no watermark, no credit card and no per-minute charge: 10 recordings a day, reset at midnight. You can transcribe Zoom meetings for free without paying for AI Companion, and to transcribe Zoom recording to text free you just upload the local MP4 or M4A and download TXT, SRT and VTT.
Is this a full Zoom transcription service or a preview?
A full Zoom transcription service: you get the complete transcript, every word, not a summary or a preview: the kind of transcript Zoom meeting hosts otherwise pay for. If you want minutes instead, the meeting minutes page builds them from the transcript.
Can it tell speakers apart?
Yes. It labels each voice as Speaker 1, Speaker 2 and so on, up to eight speakers. It doesn't know real names, so swap those in yourself with find-and-replace, or rename them once with the paid pass. Zoom meeting transcription with several speakers is accurate on the words; crosstalk, where people talk over each other, is the part to check.
Is a one-hour meeting too long?
No. Files up to 60 minutes and 1.5 GB fit in a single free upload, and you get 10 recordings a day. A longer call needs splitting, or a €5 pass that takes files up to 4 hours.
Is my meeting kept private?
Yes. The file is deleted right after processing; results are wiped within 45 minutes (24 hours with any pass, free or paid).
Can Zoom transcribe a meeting on its own, without another tool?
Zoom has its own AI Companion transcription, but it sits behind a paid plan, which is why people ask "is Zoom transcription free". Download the local recording instead and upload it here, with no Zoom add-on required.
Can I get a Zoom meeting transcript free from a call that has already ended?
Yes, as long as you or the host saved the recording. Upload that file and the Zoom transcript comes back within a couple of minutes, free.
Is there a way to transcribe Zoom meeting without recording it?
No. A recording has to exist first: ScribeGrab works from a saved file, not a live call, and it doesn't join or record the call itself.
Can I record a Zoom meeting on my own, or can you record a Zoom meeting on a phone?
Only the host, or someone the host gives permission, can record. The Zoom mobile app can record to the cloud or local storage depending on your plan. Once the recording exists, whoever has the file can upload it here and transcribe it the same way as a desktop recording.
Can I transcribe Zoom calls automatically, not by hand?
Yes, upload the file and the AI does the rest, with nothing to set up. To transcribe Zoom recordings without installing anything, drop the MP4 or M4A on the box above.
Can Copilot, Gemini or Notion transcribe a Zoom meeting?
Copilot's meeting features live inside Microsoft 365, Gemini's meeting notes inside Google Workspace, and Notion AI's meeting notes need a Notion account and a connected calendar. This page just needs the recording file, with no account or calendar link.
What file formats does the finished transcript come in?
Plain TXT for reading, and SRT or VTT if you need it as captions; all three come with every transcript of a meeting recording. The TXT gives you the full transcript, one sentence per line.
How long does it take?
A few minutes for most calls; processing time depends mainly on the recording's length, not its file size.
Can I transcribe an MP4 that didn't come from Zoom?
Yes. Any MP4 works the same way, whether it's a Zoom call, Google Meet recordings from Drive, a Teams file or a video with no meeting involved at all.
Is it still useful for people who missed the call?
That's exactly what it's for: they read the transcript to catch decisions and action items instead of asking someone to recap the call.
Where do I find my Zoom recording, on my computer or in the cloud?
A local recording is saved on the machine of whoever hit record, by default under Documents/Zoom/ in a folder named after the meeting date and title. Take audio_only.m4a if it is there, otherwise zoom_0.mp4. A cloud recording is under Recordings in your Zoom web account, with a separate audio-only download.
Can I get a call transcript from a phone call too?
Only from a recording. ScribeGrab cannot record or join a call, but a phone call saved as an audio file is transcribed like any other recording. Tell the people on the call that you are recording.
How do I get a Zoom call transcript after the meeting?
Download the recording from Zoom, upload it here and download the text as TXT, with SRT or VTT if you want timestamps. Audio-only files work fine and upload faster than video.