How to Record and Transcribe a Teams Meeting
Once you've completed a 45-minute Teams call and are ready to recall the details, Teams provides the capability for automatic recording and transcription. The simple click-to-record-and-transcribe functionality does not always provide a smooth experience, though. Here is how to record and transcribe a Teams meeting, what licenses you need, and what to watch out for when your meeting audio lives on someone else's server.
Locating the Options to Record and Transcribe a Teams Meeting
Finding the options to enable recording and transcription is easy once you know where to find them.
Recording a Teams Meeting
To begin recording a Teams meeting:
- Join a meeting, or begin a meeting
- In the meeting controls, select "More actions" (three dots)
- Select "Record and transcribe"
- Select "Start recording"
When you begin recording, all participants will receive an automated notification that the meeting is being recorded. There is no way to record a meeting silently, since Microsoft Teams notifies participants upon beginning a recording. Although this notification is a transparent method to notify participants of the recording, the presence of the notification can potentially affect the tone of the conversation.
Transcribing a Meeting Without Recording
In addition to recording a meeting, you may also opt to simply transcribe a meeting, and not store the meeting recording. To create a live, transcribed version of the meeting, follow the above process, but select "Start transcription" instead. Transcription generates a live text transcript within the meeting window, and includes the name of the individual speaking, along with the timestamp of each speaker.
Following the conclusion of the meeting, the generated transcript is available in Word (.docx) and WebVTT (.vtt) formats. Unless the meeting organizer configures otherwise, only the meeting organizer and co-organizers can download the meeting transcript. Meeting participants are allowed to view the meeting transcript, but are unable to download it unless the meeting organizer enables them to do so.
Live Captions vs. Transcription
It's important to note there's a distinction between live captions and transcription. Live captions provide real-time text captions during the meeting, along with speaker identification, but they do not generate a saved transcript after the meeting ends. Transcription, on the other hand, generates a full text transcript of the meeting that can be downloaded and reviewed later.
To enable live captions during a meeting, select "More actions" (three dots) in the meeting controls, then choose "Show live captions." The captions can appear at the bottom or top of the meeting window, based on your preference. They will automatically scroll as the meeting progresses, but they are not saved after the meeting concludes.
Required Licenses to Use Record and Transcribe Functionality
Unfortunately, not all Microsoft Teams plans include the ability to record and transcribe meetings.
Supported Plans
To record or transcribe a meeting, you must possess a Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, Office 365 E1, Office 365 E3, or Office 365 E5 plan. Microsoft 365 Education A1, A3, or A5 plans also allow for recording and transcribing.
Unsupported Plans
If you are utilizing the free version of Microsoft Teams, or if you utilize a Microsoft 365 Personal or Family plan, you are not able to record or transcribe meetings. The recording and transcribe option will be grayed out on unsupported plans.
Premium Tools
Teams Premium is priced at $10 per user per month and provides additional functionality such as live translated captions in 30+ languages, meeting sensitivity labels, and granular control over who can record. With Microsoft 365 Copilot priced at $30 per user per month, you gain AI-generated meeting summaries, but only after enabling transcription.
Location of Recorded Meetings
If you are concerned about the security of your meeting recordings, this section is likely the most important to you.
Default Cloud Storage
All recordings in Teams are automatically stored in Microsoft's cloud. For standard meetings, recordings are uploaded to the meeting organizer's OneDrive into a "Recordings" folder. For channel meetings, recordings are uploaded to the SharePoint site associated with the channel.
Local Storage Is Not Available via Teams
There is no native option to store recordings locally via Teams' built-in functionality. All recordings are stored in the cloud.
Automatic Deletion
By default, Microsoft will delete recordings after 120 days. According to Microsoft, less than 1% of recordings are accessed more than 60 days after recording. Following the expiration of the 120-day period, files remain in the SharePoint Recycle Bin for 93 additional days prior to final deletion. If a recording fails to upload due to insufficient space in the organizer's OneDrive, Microsoft will retain the recording for 21 days prior to deleting.
Privacy Implications
For clients, lawyers, healthcare providers, or anyone conducting meetings involving sensitive information, the fact that Teams utilizes cloud-based storage for recordings raises privacy concerns. Your meeting audio and transcript are stored on Microsoft servers, subject to Microsoft's data processing agreements, and the jurisdiction of the applicable law.
Organizations governed by laws such as GDPR, HIPAA, and other regulations should carefully configure Teams policies to avoid compliance issues. Violation of GDPR can result in fines up to 20 million euros or 4% of a company's annual revenue.
Common Issues with Teams Transcription
While Teams transcription generally works, it has several serious limitations you should be aware of before relying on it.
Accuracy
As a general rule, the accuracy of Teams transcription is not high enough to rely on for professional purposes without manually reviewing the output. Misinterpretation of accents, background noise, and technical jargon often occurs in the output. Misidentification of proper nouns, company names, and project-specific abbreviations frequently occur as well. Only organizations that utilize Microsoft 365 Copilot (priced at $30 per user per month) can create custom dictionaries.
Language Support
Although Teams offers 34 to 41 languages depending on the feature for live transcription, there is a catch. You can only designate one spoken language per meeting. If participants switch between languages, the transcription accuracy decreases significantly. Teams Premium (priced at $10 per user per month) allows users to generate live translated captions in over 100 languages. The translated caption is only available during the meeting, though. Once the meeting concludes, the caption is reverted back to the original language.
What Gets Lost
Teams recording does not capture whiteboards, annotations, shared documents, or content created with applications. While Teams will capture up to four video streams simultaneously, the video streams of participants in large meetings will not be captured. Mobile users are unable to access live transcription during the meeting, but they will be able to access it after it ends.
Alternative Solutions to Consider
While the built-in tools in Teams are sufficient for most users, there are alternative solutions to consider.
Cloud-Based Alternatives
Tools such as Otter.ai and Fireflies offer higher transcription accuracy, searchable libraries of meeting recordings, and integration with Teams. Fellow supports 92+ languages with speaker identification. While these tools offer the additional features desired by many users, the primary drawback to using them is that your meeting audio will be transmitted to yet another cloud service.
The Local Option
If you wish to maintain your meeting recordings and transcripts on your machine, rather than having them transmitted to a cloud service, offline meeting tools are designed for this purpose. Shmeetings records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings using local AI models. No cloud uploads, no third-party servers, and no monthly subscription fees.
This matters to users involved in sensitive client conversations, legal or medical discussions, or proprietary business strategy. Your meeting data remains on your machine and is not transmitted to a cloud service. Shmeetings works alongside Teams without joining the call as a bot, so other participants are not notified that a separate tool is running.
Frequently Asked Questions
May I record a Teams meeting without notifying other participants?
No. Microsoft Teams will send a notification to all participants when you begin recording. There is no mechanism to disable the notification of recording via the Teams interface. If you must record without sending the bot notification to participants, you may wish to use a local recording tool to record the system audio.
Why is the record option greyed out when I attempt to record a Teams meeting?
One of three reasons typically exists to explain why the record option is unavailable to you:
- Your Microsoft 365 plan does not include recording capabilities (the free version, Personal version, and Family versions of Microsoft 365 do not support recording)
- Your IT administrator has configured Teams policy to prevent recording
- You do not possess the appropriate role in the meeting (guests, anonymous users, and external participants are unable to initiate recordings)
How long will Teams store my recordings?
Unless you modify the retention period to range from one day to never expire via Teams Admin Center, Microsoft Teams will store your recordings for a total of 120 days prior to moving them to the SharePoint Recycle Bin for an additional 93 days prior to permanently deleting the file.
Can I create a live transcription of a Teams meeting in multiple languages at once?
No. Teams forces you to designate a single spoken language for a meeting. While live translation of captions is possible using Teams Premium (priced at $10 per user per month), the translated captions are only available during the meeting, and revert to the original language once the meeting is concluded.
Are there ways to keep Teams meeting recordings local to my machine?
Yes. Teams does not provide a native means to store recordings locally. If you want to store your recordings locally, you will need to use a third-party tool. Shmeetings records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings entirely locally on your Mac.
What formats can I export a Teams transcript in?
You can export Teams meeting transcripts in either Word (.docx) or WebVTT (.vtt) format. You cannot export transcripts in PDF or plain text format. By default, only meeting organizers and co-organizers will be permitted to download meeting transcripts.