How to transcribe a Zoom meeting without a bot

There are two ways to transcribe a Zoom meeting without adding a bot to it: Zoom’s own transcription features, or an app that listens to your computer’s audio. Inside Zoom, the most reliable option is the audio transcript of a cloud recording, but it requires a paid account, the host starts the recording, and the transcript is created in English by default. Below you’ll find the requirements for each option, how they handle meetings in other languages, and which one fits you.

Information about Zoom was checked against Zoom’s official support pages on October 6, 2026. Zoom changes its features and plan requirements often; check again in your own account before an important meeting.

#What are the ways to transcribe a meeting in Zoom?

Zoom has three built-in features that turn speech into text. Each does a different job:

Free (Basic) accounts don’t get cloud recording or meeting transcripts. For automatic captions, Zoom notes that “this setting may not be available for some accounts”; check your own account.

#How do you get a cloud recording transcript in Zoom?

The audio transcript of a cloud recording is generated from the recording’s audio after the meeting ends. According to Zoom’s support page, you need a Pro, Business, Education or Enterprise account with cloud recording turned on. This transcript only works for cloud recordings; it isn’t available for recordings saved to your computer.

1. In the Zoom web portal, go to Settings → Recording and make sure Cloud recording is turned on.
2. In the advanced cloud recording settings, check Create audio transcript. At the account or group level, only the account owner or an admin can change this setting.
3. In the meeting, start recording to the cloud. Only the host and co-hosts can start a cloud recording.
4. After the meeting, wait for the emails telling you the recording, and then the transcript, are ready. The transcript can take extra processing time after the recording.
5. If the meeting wasn’t in English, open the meeting on the recordings page, hover over the audio transcript file, choose the meeting’s language (for example Turkish) under Change Language, and save. Zoom reprocesses the audio and creates a transcript in that language.
6. If needed, use the pencil icon to fix wrong words and unrecognized speaker names.

Zoom lists 19 transcript languages, and Turkish is one of them. But because the transcript is created in English by default, skipping step 5 in a meeting held in another language leaves you with meaningless text.

#What is Zoom’s meeting transcript for?

The meeting transcript turns the conversation into text during the meeting, in a panel on the right. According to Zoom’s support page, the feature is available on Pro, Business and Enterprise accounts and is off by default; the host or an admin has to turn it on.

• The host starts it from the toolbar with More → Transcript.
• A participant can request a transcript from the same menu; the host either declines the request or starts the transcript.
• Anyone allowed to save the transcript gets a .txt file via Save transcript at the bottom of the panel. On a Mac, the file is saved to the Documents/Zoom folder.
• An admin can choose who can save it: only the host, the host and co-hosts, non-guest participants, or everyone. They can also show participants a custom notice when the transcript is turned on.

Zoom’s support page for this feature doesn’t say which languages are supported. If your meeting isn’t in English, do a short test in your own account before relying on it.

#Can you save Zoom captions?

Not anymore. Zoom’s automatic captions support Turkish among other languages and show the conversation on screen during the meeting. But since May 18, 2026, Zoom no longer lets you save or download captions. Captions are now purely a live accessibility feature; Zoom recommends the meeting transcript for anyone who wants to keep the conversation.

In other words, captions help you read a sentence you just missed, but they don’t leave you with any text after the meeting.

#Is there a way to transcribe on a free Zoom account?

Zoom’s own transcripts are for paid accounts. On a free account, you have two options:

1. Record to your computer and transcribe it later. Local recording is available on free accounts too, but Zoom doesn’t add a transcript to it. You’ll need to upload the audio file to a transcription tool that supports your meeting’s language. Let participants know before you record.
2. Use an app that listens to your computer’s audio. These apps don’t connect to Zoom; they listen to your microphone and the audio coming out of your computer. They don’t depend on the host turning on a feature or on a paid Zoom plan.

#A bot, or an app that listens to your computer’s audio?

Many note-taking tools join the Zoom meeting as a separate participant, that is, as a bot. The bot shows up in the participant list, can get stuck waiting for the host’s approval, and some organizations don’t allow outside bots to join their meetings. With an app that listens to your computer’s audio, nobody is added to the meeting; but because the audio comes from your computer, you need to be in the meeting. We explain the difference between the two approaches in more detail in our post on what a live meeting assistant is.

Whichever route you choose, a transcript isn’t the outcome of the meeting. To pull decisions and action items out of a transcript, see our meeting note templates.

#How does Koldash transcribe a Zoom meeting?

Koldash works on a Mac by listening to your computer’s audio. It listens to your microphone as You and the audio playing on your Mac as Them, on two separate channels, and transcribes the conversation live in English, Turkish or German. No bot joins Zoom, and it doesn’t depend on Zoom’s settings or plan; it works with any call whose audio plays on your Mac. By default it only asks for microphone and system audio permission; Screen Recording permission is requested only when you use Look at Screen.

When you end the meeting, the transcript is saved to History and a summary is prepared based on the meeting’s purpose. Audio is not stored. Speakers are separated by channel: if there are several people on the other side, they all appear as Them. The app only runs on Macs with macOS 15 or later.

#What should you check before transcribing?

• Let people know. Whether you use Zoom’s own feature or a separate app, you may need to inform participants depending on the rules where you are and your company’s policy.
• Check the language. For a meeting that isn’t in English, remember to change the language of the cloud recording transcript; if you use a separate tool, make sure it supports the language.
• Fix proper names. Product names, abbreviations and people’s names are the parts transcripts get wrong most often. Read those parts before you share.
• Trim the transcript before sharing it. A raw transcript is long and messy; most people want to see the decisions and action items.