How to Get a Zoom Transcript (With or Without Recording)

There are two ways to get a Zoom transcript: turn on Zoom's own audio transcription (which requires a recording and a paid plan), or capture the call's audio with a separate tool and transcribe that instead. This guide covers both — including how to get a transcript without recording the meeting, how to download and copy what Zoom produces, and how to turn transcription off when you don't want it.

Option 1: Zoom's built-in transcription

Zoom can transcribe a cloud recording automatically, but there are conditions.

How to enable transcription in Zoom

Audio transcription is tied to cloud recording, which is available on paid Zoom plans:

1. In the Zoom web portal, go to Settings → Recording.
2. Turn on Cloud recording, then enable Audio transcript.
3. In your next meeting, click Record → Record to the Cloud. Zoom generates the transcript after the meeting ends.

On the free plan there's no cloud recording, so there's no automatic transcript — you'd record locally and transcribe the file with another tool.

How to get, download, and copy a Zoom transcript after the meeting

Once processing finishes, the transcript appears alongside the recording:

• Get it: Zoom web portal → Recordings → Cloud Recordings → select the meeting. The transcript (a .vtt file) is listed with the video.
• Download: click the download icon next to the transcript file.
• Copy: open the recording's playback page, where the transcript shows beside the video, and select the text to copy. You can also edit speaker labels there.

How to turn off transcription in Zoom

To stop Zoom transcribing, go to Settings → Recording and turn off Audio transcript (or Cloud recording entirely). Mid-meeting, stopping the recording stops the transcript — there's no separate "transcription" toggle once a cloud recording is running.

Option 2: Get a Zoom transcript without recording

Zoom's own transcript always comes from a saved recording. If you want the text but not a stored video — or you're on the free plan, or you're not the host — capture the call's audio separately and transcribe that.

A system-audio app on your Mac reads the sound your computer is already playing and transcribes it, so:

• No Zoom recording is needed — you don't have to be host or on a paid tier.
• No "recording" banner from a third-party bot, because nothing joins the call.
• You still get a full transcript, plus a structured summary.

Nod does exactly this. It captures your Mac's system audio, transcribes it, and discards the audio — the text exists, but no recording is saved anywhere. Because it captures at the operating-system level rather than reading on-screen captions, it isn't limited to one browser tab the way caption-scraping extensions are, and it works whether Zoom is in a tab, the desktop app, or another window.

On privacy: capture is local on your Mac, but transcription runs in the EU cloud — each audio segment is sent through a European proxy to a transcription service and dropped the instant the text returns, with Zero Data Retention and no model training. Only the transcript and summary are kept, encrypted at rest in the EU. Details are on the security page.

For the bot-free angle specifically, see Zoom notes without a bot. Note that getting a transcript without a visible recording doesn't remove your duty to get consent where recording law requires it — see meeting recording consent laws.