Gotcha
Transcripts may be deleted after 90 days depending on your organization's retention policy. Your Workspace admin controls this setting. Export or move your transcripts to a permanent folder before they disappear.
Export guide
Google Meet can transcribe your meetings — but finding and bulk downloading those transcripts is not always obvious. This guide walks you through enabling Google Meet transcription, locating your transcript files in Google Drive, bulk exporting them all at once, and downloading them step by step.
Google Workspace plan required. Google Meet transcription is not available on free Gmail accounts. You need one of these plans:
If you are on Workspace Business Starter or a personal Gmail account, the transcription option will not appear in your meeting controls. Ask your Workspace admin which plan your organization is on.
Admin must enable the feature. Even on a supported plan, your Google Workspace admin needs to turn on transcription in the Admin Console. The setting is under Apps → Google Workspace → Google Meet → Meet settings → Recording & transcription. If you don't see the transcript option in meetings, this is the most likely reason.
Language support. Google Meet transcription currently supports English, French, German, Portuguese, and Spanish. If your meeting is in another language, the transcript option may not appear or the output quality may be poor.
Step 1
While on a Google Meet call, look at the bottom-right toolbar. Click the Activities icon (it looks like a triangle, square, and circle). A side panel opens. Select Transcripts, then click Start Transcription.
A banner appears at the top of the screen notifying all participants that the meeting is being transcribed. Transcription must be started manually for each meeting — there is no auto-start setting.
Step 2
After the meeting ends, the Google Meet transcript is automatically saved to the meeting organizer's Google Drive. Look for a folder called Meet Recordings in the root of their Drive. The transcript is saved as a Google Doc with the meeting name and date.
All meeting participants also receive an email with a direct link to the transcript document. Check your inbox for a message from Google Meet with the subject line containing the meeting name.
Step 3
Open the transcript Google Doc. Go to File → Download and choose your preferred format:
PDF Document (.pdf) — Best for sharing and archiving. Preserves formatting.
Plain Text (.txt) — Best for analysis tools and search. Smallest file size.
Microsoft Word (.docx) — Best if you need to edit the transcript in Word.
The file will save to your computer's Downloads folder. For analysis with tools like Moat, plain text (.txt) or PDF works best.
Step 4
The steps above work for individual transcripts. If you have dozens or hundreds of meeting transcripts to download, see the Bulk Export Options section below for two methods that grab everything at once.
Shortcut: If all your transcripts are in the same Google Drive folder, you can share that entire folder with a service like Moat instead of downloading each file individually.
The steps above work for downloading individual transcripts. But if you have dozens or hundreds of meeting transcripts, you need a faster approach. Here are two ways to grab everything at once.
Google Takeout lets you export your entire Google Drive contents in a single download. Since Google Meet transcripts are saved as Google Docs in your Drive, they are included automatically.
All transcript files (saved as Google Docs named "Transcript of...") will be included. One download, every transcript. This is the simplest bulk method.
If you only want the transcripts (not your entire Drive), this method is faster than Takeout:
Google automatically zips the selected files into a single download. If you have many transcripts, the zip file may take a few minutes to prepare. You will see a notification when it is ready.
This method is ideal when you want just the transcripts and nothing else from your Drive.
Transcripts may be deleted after 90 days depending on your organization's retention policy. Your Workspace admin controls this setting. Export or move your transcripts to a permanent folder before they disappear.
Create a dedicated Google Drive folder for all meeting transcripts. When you're ready to analyze them, just share that folder with us — no downloading required.
This is the most common issue. Check the following:
The transcript is saved to the organizer's Google Drive, not yours. If you were not the organizer, check the email you received from Google Meet for a direct link. If the organizer has left the organization, the transcript may have been deleted with their account.
Some Google Workspace admins configure retention policies that automatically delete files in the Meet Recordings folder after a set period (often 90 days). To prevent this:
Google Meet transcription accuracy depends on audio quality. For better results, use a good microphone, minimize background noise, and ask participants to speak one at a time. Heavily accented speech or industry-specific jargon may be transcribed incorrectly.
Once you have downloaded your Google Meet transcripts, the real value comes from what you do with them. Most teams export transcripts and then never look at them again. Here are a few ways to actually use that data:
For teams with large call archives, Moat reads your entire transcript archive and produces strategic intelligence reports. We work with Google Meet transcripts, Zoom recordings, and exports from tools like Otter and Fireflies. One analysis across all your conversations reveals what hundreds of individual call summaries miss.
Read more about the methodology: What is cross-conversation analysis?
No. Someone in the meeting must manually start transcription each time by clicking Activities → Transcripts → Start Transcription. There is no setting to auto-transcribe all Google Meet meetings. If nobody starts it, no transcript is created.
The transcript feature is only available on Google Workspace Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise, or Education Plus plans. If you are on a personal Gmail account or Workspace Starter plan, the option will not appear. Your Workspace admin may also need to enable the feature in the Admin Console under Apps → Google Workspace → Google Meet → Recording & transcription settings.
Transcripts are saved as Google Docs in the meeting organizer's Google Drive, inside a folder called Meet Recordings. All meeting participants also receive an email with a link to the transcript after the meeting ends. If you can't find the file, search your Drive for the meeting name or check your email for the Google Meet notification.
Google Meet transcripts stored in Google Drive do not automatically delete by default. However, your organization's Workspace admin may have set retention policies that remove files from the Meet Recordings folder after a period (commonly 90 days). To keep your transcripts safe, download them or move them to a different Drive folder outside the retention policy scope.
Google Meet itself does not have a bulk export button, but there are two effective workarounds. First, use Google Takeout (takeout.google.com) to export your entire Google Drive, which includes all transcript files. Second, search Google Drive for "Transcript of" to find all transcripts, select all results, and click Download — Google zips them into a single file. For teams with hundreds of transcripts, you can also share your entire Meet Recordings folder with a service like Moat to skip the download step entirely.
The fastest method is Google Takeout: go to takeout.google.com, select Google Drive, and download everything. All transcript files (saved as Google Docs named "Transcript of...") are included in one download. Alternatively, search Google Drive for "Transcript of" to find every transcript, select all, and download — Google automatically zips them into one file. See the Bulk Export Options section above for detailed steps.
Using other recording or transcription tools alongside Google Meet? These guides walk you through exporting from each one:
Or skip the export step entirely — try the Moat Mac app and import directly.