How to Transcribe a Google Meet Recording — Free

No software install, no Drive add-on, no account. Drop the .mp4 from your Drive, get a transcript with timestamps and speakers.

Where Google Meet saves the recording

Recordings always go to the Drive of the meeting host, in a folder named Meet Recordings. Meet auto-creates the folder on first use. The host gets an email when processing completes (usually within an hour of the meeting ending).

If you weren't the host, ask the host to share the file from their Drive. Co-hosts can share too.

The 3-step workflow

1. Download from Drive — open the .mp4 in Drive, click the three-dot menu → Download. Save anywhere local.
2. Drop into ScribeForge — go to scribeforge.tech, drag the file onto the upload zone. 25 MB cap fits roughly 8–10 minutes of default-quality Meet .mp4. For longer, see below.
3. Click Transcribe. Grok extracts the audio and returns text with timestamps and speakers in 10–30 seconds.

Long meetings (over 25 MB)

The Meet .mp4 includes video that adds nothing to transcription. Extract the audio first — it's 1/10 the size:

ffmpeg -i meet.mp4 -vn -c:a copy meet.m4a

If the resulting .m4a is still over 25 MB (~25+ minutes), split into chunks:

ffmpeg -i meet.m4a -f segment -segment_time 1500 -c copy chunk%03d.m4a

Transcribe each chunk separately and concatenate the text files.

Live captions vs full transcript

Google Meet's live captions appear during the call and disappear when it ends — they are not stored. The full transcript is something you generate from the recording afterward. ScribeForge is the post-meeting flow: takes the .mp4, returns the text. If you want real-time captions, use Meet's built-in option (Settings → Captions). The two workflows are independent.

What to do with the transcript

• Search the meeting — find a quote across an hour of audio in seconds.
• Summarize with Grok chat / Claude / GPT — paste the .txt and ask for action items, decisions, follow-ups.
• Share the .txt with people who couldn't attend.
• Compliance — keep the text record without storing the (much larger) video.

Common questions

Recording is gated to Workspace plans (Business Standard+, Enterprise, Education). On a free Google account you can't record Meet directly — but if someone in the call recorded and shared the file, you can transcribe it freely.

Yes. Grok STT does automatic diarization (Speaker 1, Speaker 2, …). You rename them to real names in the transcript text afterward. Accuracy depends on each participant having distinct voice characteristics and at least a few seconds of speech.

Audio is processed via xAI's Grok STT API and deleted immediately. ScribeForge keeps neither the audio nor the transcript past your browser session.

25+, with automatic language detection: English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, and more. No language hint required for clean speech.

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